


Breathe a Lie

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Broken Crown [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Asexual Mycroft, Blow Jobs, Branding, Demisexual Sherlock, M/M, Object Penetration, Ownership, Problematic societies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:26:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a flicker of something in his expression that seemed a little out of place with the genial expression he was promoting. Something dark and wet in Moriarty's eyes that struck Seb as wrong. Micro expressions were important, hugely so, and that flicker had been something he hadn't expected, hadn't had time to process.  Instead, Seb nudged the man's leg lightly with his knee, looking at the material of his suit. "Mind. Gaultier is a bit high label for a man who's at the tracks betting."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Seb had a feeling about London, which was why he'd stayed there after he'd run away with just a wad of cash and kit he'd need for jobs, guns without serial numbers, one rifle that he adored. He was young, and decent looking, he knew; it was easy to blend in with the street kids, quietly demurring the drugs he was offered, going drinking with one group one night, looking for seedier and seedier places. He'd done a robbery for a Taiwanese group that Paul would've murdered to have contacts with, but he felt no closer, as he settled into the back of a new place that felt comfortably unsavory, to finding the fucking lead he was looking for. 

He had to be careful. Sherlock had feedback on what he had found but more disturbing was what he didn't find which implied they were dealing with someone who could out think the Holmes'. Sherlock and Mycroft had had an argument of truly epic proportions when Mycroft refused to allow him to go into another hall-marked trap even though Sherlock was convinced his intelligence would see him clear.

There was nothing for him to do but go forth and see how far he could get. A bigger group wouldn't manage at all, which left him or hope that they wanted to negotiate. And there'd been nothing so far, for too long for there to be a ransom attempt.

Seb lifted his eyebrows at the bartender come angry fucking looking waitress. "I don't suppose you have specials of the day?"

"You got the money for it?" she said cynically. "House rule, I want to see the coins on the bar before you get served."

He leaned, reaching into his pocket to fish out a tenner. "Good enough?" He was carrying small amounts of money. Setting up a bank account under a name that wasn't real had been easy, and he could hold bigger amounts of money there without having to worry about getting mugged.

The transformation was remarkable. Suddenly there was a smile, her attitude changed. "Well, we've got a halfway decent curry on today. That's what I'd have. And the burger and chips is good if you just want something you can't really screw up."

"Curry. Curry sounds good. And something to drink." He knew he looked perfectly at the end of his rope, and probably homeless to go with it. And hey, it wasn't too far from the truth.

He was missing Mycroft and scared for Paul and by now John would have been told he'd been killed. He knew it was necessary but it was a consequence he had not considered. "Beer, cider, lager? Something stronger?" she offered.

"Oh I think he should try a malt whisky," a chirpy Irish lilting voice said beside him. "On me. It's cold out there."

He cut a sideways look at the lilting voice, and then shrugged at the woman as she took his tenner. The man was average height, a bit small and lean looking, with his hair slicked back and dark dark eyes. There were smudges of dark circles under them, making his eyes look wider, the whites whiter. "Thanks, mate."

"No problem. Won a bundle on the horses," the man replied. "I'm feeling flush with good fortune and natural Irish generosity. The names Jim, Jim Moriarty."

Moriarty, and horses. He turned that over in his head, and turned himself a little on his barstool. "Sebastian Moran. Good to meet you, Jim."

"Likewise I'm sure," the man replied. "Bloody hell, you're tall aren't you?" He grinned a little as whisky was given to them both. "Thank you darlin', leave the bottle." He tossed a fifty pound note on the bar. "Me and my new friend here have some drinking to do.”

"Do we?" He lifted an eyebrow at the man, but he reached to take the whiskey in careful fingers. Cocky fucking little grin, but Seb knew better than to underestimate people, and the criminal underground was a damn strange place. "Last time I saw someone buying drinks like this the recipient was a pretty lady."

"You mean you aren't?" Jim said, smirking. "What can I say, I hate to drink alone and winning requires a drink in celebration. I like winning."

He made a mock toast at the man. "Then, to your good fortune." And took a swig, swallowing it down with barely a grimace. That was Paul's doing, teaching him how to drink and keep his head about him as much as possible. As much as genetics would allow him. "And no, unfortunately not."

"Well, not that unfortunately," Jim said in that bantering tone, and yeah that was definitely a light pass being made at him. "So Sebastian Moran, what brings you to this...quality pub eh?

"Looking for work." He shrugged one shoulder as he set the now empty glass down. "It's niche work."

"Well you know the Irish, if we don't know we know someone who does, and if we don't we make it happen," Jim answered. "Niche work...give me a shot."

He shook his head minutely, more with his eyes than anything else. "Nah, if you have to ask, it's probably not your style. You stick to betting at the track, there are worse things you could be doing."

"Mmm, oh now you intrigue me," he replied. "Something dark and mysterious. I like dark and mysterious." There was a flicker of something in his expression that seemed a little out of place with the genial expression he was promoting.

Soething dark and wet in his eyes that struck Seb as wrong. Micro expressions were important, hugely so, and that flicker had been something he hadn't expected, hadn't had time to process. Instead, Seb nudged the man's leg lightly with his knee, looking at the material of his suit. "Mind. Gaultier is a bit high label for a man who's at the tracks betting."

"I like to feel a bit of a thrill. Just because I like a flutter doesn't mean I'm not successful," Jim answered topping up the whisky. He was looking at him again. "And that I can't recognise a kindred spirit."

"Don't know what you're on about." He took another sip of the whiskey, slower that time. It was always hard to tell in the first few minutes where things were headed, and he'd fended off enough dead ends to not get excited or interested in much of anything. "So what brings haute couture into a place like this, chatting up an unemployed fellow?"

"When I saw the unemployed fellow walking with a certain walk," Jim said mildly. "A trained walk. That I recognised."

Oh, for fuck's sake. Seb finished off his whiskey, and cupped the glass in his hand like the prop it was. Fuck. As a runaway companion, he knew what he should assume when someone said that, and that if someone were guessing that they likely had him by the proverbial short hairs. "And why does that interest you?"

"Hello, kindred spirit...join the dots," Jim replied. "Come on Sebastian, put the pieces together."

Uncomfortably familiar with him, and he felt his jaw clench. "Yeah, I'm putting the pieces together, but it's not like the only people who recognise that are companions. You're a bit well dressed to be an independent man." Too risky, to even be saying that in the bar.

Jim laughed, literally giggled and then laughed uproariously. "Look at you so wary. It's adorable. This is my place Sebastian. I like this place, so it belongs to me, isn't that right Debbie." 

The waitress looked at Seb and shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much. Mr. Moriarty does that sometimes."

He felt and let himself look confused for a moment, looking between the waitress and Mr. Moriarty again, 'Jim'. He set his glass down on the bar top, trying to work out quite how to answer when the slicked fellow was *giggling*. "Fuck, I'm not in a mood to be played with right now."

"Oh come on," Jim replied. "Debbie..." he waved her away. "If I catch anyone in earshot for the next five minutes I will not be happy. There now, that's better..." He looked at him. "I can spot a runaway Companion when I see one. I could slip you a pamphlet if it would make you feel better. Actually, more to the point I've got contact who keep an eye out for Companion runaways."

He rubbed a hand along the side of his face. Fuck, okay, that was something interesting, even if it maybe wasn't what he was looking for. "Yeah, okay. Who the fuck was it?"

"Building where you slept last few nights. Hairless Bob I call him. Tips me off when a likely one comes in," Jim replied and shrugged. "Look, I'm successful, no reason you can't be too. Best training, education all of that in the world, and then parceled up and given to ignorant fuckers who don't know what the hell to do with what they've been given."

Fuck, yeah. He could go with it. He gave a faint nod, just a little unsteady. "I'm law enforcement. Sort of. Was." He felt that realisation, and repeated "Was" with a bit of surprise in his throat. "Fuck. I couldn't stay. I'm." He reached for the whiskey bottle to pour a little into his glass himself.

Jim gave him a friendly pat on the arm. "I know. So, effectively you are either a fugitive or officially dead now - well, I can reinvent you. I can give you a job, a place in the world where other people have to dance to your tune. I have a lot of your kind...our kind on my payroll. Smart people, loyal as hell and making their own choices instead of pandering to arrogant bastards."

He closed his eyes for a moment, because that was sort of a scary concept, wasn't it? There was a loyalty, a follower reaction just ingrained into them. Give them a good lifestyle, a bit of work, that was fucking genius for building anything a person wanted to build. "What do I have to do to get in?"

"Mmmm... should I think up a bizarre initiation or should I just send you to one of our group houses to get cleaned up and you can have an interview with me tomorrow?" Jim joked. "I'll have time to tie you up with the latest missing or declared dead from the Benefactor council.”

"I think I'd prefer a shower and an interview tomorrow." He wasn't going to volunteer his benefactor's name. He wasn't going to use that as coin, and it'd come up in time. He'd do what he had to do, because that was interesting, that was something... new, something he hadn't seen before.

It would give him a sensible back story when he finally found his lead in to finding Paul, and he'd need all the credibility he could muster. Mycroft had given him permission to make him the villain in his Companion hard luck story and other Companions would understand that.

"Well then, lets get you there and suited and booted as they say. Carmel will sort you out and get rid of this rubbish," Jim replied brightly knocking back his whisky. He popped out phone and started scrolling through it. "I've got very dull meeting...ah...no, let’s put you at 4 tomorrow. If I like the look of you...employment-wise - I already like the look of you otherwise, I'll get your ID sorted out."

Whirlwind fast. Seb finished his drink and stayed where he was. "4 pm, then, sir. Where?"

"Here,” Jim handed him a card. "Although Carmel will make sure you get there." He bounced up, still with a sort of manic energy. “Come on, I'll show you where you can stay. Even if you don't want to join, we do a couple of months free so you can get yourself presentable for jobs and get you set up and on your merry way. Never yet known a Companion not get a job in those first few months if they were in a fit state to do so."

Smooth, well organized former companion trafficking. It was brilliant, Seb decided as he stood up to follow Mr. Moriarty wherever he wanted to lead Seb. He was still wary as he pocketed the card, but it was hard to hide genuine interest. "Won't say no to an opportunity."

Mycroft had failed to add his shadowy opponent to his calculations. "And that's exactly the sort of attitude I look for in one of my future employee's," Jim replied with a broad grin as he headed out the pub. "I think you'll do very well with me Sebastian Moran."

It didn't take long to reach where they were headed. Moriarty gave off the air of a comfortably busy man, one who existed in a state of go go go. He walked Seb half a mile, maybe a mile away, comfortable and unafraid that his nice suit might draw muggers; there was a building of flats that Seb had seen earlier and dismissed as a cheap attempt to gentrify the area. Apparently Moriarty owned it, and it was bustling. He ditched Seb at the front counter, left instructions, and took off again.

It was a nice little space, small, one bedroom, but the floors were marble and the bathroom was probably bigger than the kitchen, so the designers had clearly had some priority issues going on when they'd built it. It afforded Seb a good night's sleep -- as did the delivery fellow who came by with Seb's abandoned curry from the seedy bar -- and he was up in the morning for a jog.

The fact that the woman from the front desk had clothes delivered to the door by the time he got back from his run left him feeling antsy and uncomfortably, like he was being set up. They were definitely in his size, so by the time he was standing outside of another non-descript office building at 4 pm, he was a wound up ball of anticipation and paranoia, stuffed into a too-good, too well-fitted suit. All he could think was that the man had done the same creepy trick Mycroft did sometimes where he sized a person up and also noted their measurements at the same time. It was excellent for dealing with detainees -- oh, no, we had that jumpsuit waiting for you, perfect fit, isn't it -- and apparently for prospective employees.

He would have preferred to have chatted to a few of the staff informally to get a feel for the situation, but he didn't have time. No one seemed to be living in fear or hopelessness though in an office that was not often easy to spot. Still, when Jim Moriarty breezed through the office with two Starbucks cups in his hand, one of which he handed to Seb and it was somehow exactly how he liked his coffee, that did freak him out."

"Come in, come in sit down," Jim said, the epitome of the business man. "I don't like formal interviews. Cup of coffee and a chat...if I can't get an idea about someone in that time then what am I doing in business eh?" He had a file, a dossier in his hand which he tossed onto the table and he sat in his plush looking chair with the air of a kid who wanted to spin the seat around and around.

And just maybe he did. He sat down across from the man, posture wary as he did so, taking a sip of his coffee. "You make it your business to know things ahead of time, then. That's..." Creepy, annoying, fucking familiar. All of the above.

"Oh I have information," Jim answered. "Information is like gold but without pattern and context it's just an inert lumpy nugget, all isolated on its own. From this I know that you were Sebastian Holmes, Companion to Mycroft Holmes... Surprisingly difficult to get that name would you believe, and that you have been trained in a military fashion -- very impressive scores, by the way -- and you were declare dead from injuries sustained in a recent assignment."

His hand went to his side, and while it'd gotten a little red, he was pretty sure it wasn't killing him. He rolled his eyes, and took a sip of what was really a perfect cup of coffee. Seb hadn't known Starbucks could make a perfect cup. "That's tidy."

"Well, it's easy to kill off the Companions who get trained in the military," Jim said leaning back. "In a figurative sense. So as you are not looking particularly dead, what happened?"

He pressed his tongue against his teeth, and took another sip of his coffee, hands clinging loosely to the cup. "I got stabbed in a raid that went badly. We shouldn't have been there, it was a stupid fucking idea, and our team leader's dead or, I don't know. I couldn't stay. Mycroft's a fucking bastard, and I couldn't keep doing it."

"Not the Companion dream partnership then?" Jim asked easily. "There's a lot less of those around than the media would have us know."

Seb gave a shaky exhalation, and rubbed fingers at the edge of his mouth. "Before I even came home, he'd already handed me off to my team leader. It was, we were fucking chess pieces to be moved around, and before you knew what was going on, you were already doing exactly what he wanted."

"And you couldn't stand that? Companions are meant to do as they are told," Jim commented looking at him with strange dark eyes.

He laughed then, watching those strange dark eyes. "There are limits. Coming home and finding out that your benefactor has no interest in you at all, except as a tool to be wielded, and he's already handed you off to his fucking staff, sight unseen..." It was so easy to feel angry about that all over again. "And now Paul's dead or gone. He wrote him off, and he'd do the same with me just as easily."

"And there were you with skills, initiative and intelligence and it was squandered," Jim tsked to himself slowly. "Tell me Sebastian... that seems so formal doesn't it? Can I call you Seb? Bast would make you sound like a cat or something.... anyway, tell me what have you surmised about my little organisation?"

"Little might be underselling it," Seb murmured, pitching his voice agreeably enough. "You're extremely well organized, and having former companions making up most of your... people is brilliant. We've all got the same cues and quirks ingrained in us, and that probably makes the whole thing easier for you to control. You know what chords to strike, and how to do it just right."

"And the nature of my business?" Jim asked smiling broadly at him.

"Criminal and monetary. You have equal investment in legitimate equities probably because it's better to do your own pass-through work than let someone else do it." 

"Very good Seb," Jim said sounding pleased. "Your skill set makes you ideal for our organisation."

"It's not exactly a moral qualm for me," Seb shrugged. The man's eyes were dancing. "I've robbed and killed for queen and country. Don't see any problem doing it for another reason."

"Most of the Companions who come through here will not know anything about the less legitimate way of business," Jim said putting his feet up. "They will go out of here employed in a legitimate business or with a reference from us as a fictitious previous employer."

"Which seeds good will for you in unexpected places." Seb was picking up on the whys of it quickly.

"Connections are everything," Jim replied nodding at him. "Obviously though, I have to have a degree of caution and in the interests of full disclosure I have to say this is your last chance to back out. If you screw up after I've taken you on, my methods are much more...final."

"You think I don't have worse waiting for me if Mycroft gets a hold of me?" Seb cocked an eyebrow at him, and took another sip of his coffee. "I'm in."

"Then I'm interested in your skill set. You've been trained as an adaptable soldier. What are your principle skills and weaknesses," Jim said.

He closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm an excellent shot. I was the best all-around agent we had. They trusted me to make the hard calls no one else wanted to. I'm a bit weaker with technology than a lot of my peers were. Still, I know what a burn phone is and how to use it."

"We can bring up those skills," Jim replied drumming his fingers on the side. "I have a position in mind. One that I have been unable to fill for a long time, because a people have a tendency to be stupid."

"I'm interested." He lifted his eyebrows at the man. All nervous motion. Drumming fingers, spinning in the chair. Drugs? "Stupidity hasn't been tolerated at home."

"I have room for a right hand man, my problem is that most people get demoted within days or weeks for just being too stupid for me to bear," Jim said. "But I need someone else. And I think you have potential."

Right hand man. Right hand to a criminal enterprise of at least some creativity. That would give him access to information like he hadn't imagined, and could be useful to find Paul. As long as he didn't do anything stupid. "If I screw up, at least I guess I'll be going out with a bang."

"Well, if you annoy me, I just send you away, but if you screw up..." Moriarty shrugged. "But you don't do you?"

"Screw up?" He shook his head in a tight gesture. "No, I take a little too much pride in my work to screw up."

"Well then, nothing to worry about," Jim replied. "First things first, I will be getting you more clothes...I'll get them sent over, but come with me and we'll pick out a gun. That's much more fun."

He watched Jim's legs flex to stand up, and moved with him, waiting to follow. He could shadow even the most unpredictable person for all he was worth. And maybe this was just an interesting rabbit hole, but he had to hope it was all leading him somewhere. "I have a couple with me, but I wouldn't say no to another..."

"Oh, these are like... porn," Jim said smiling. "I treat my employees well." He sauntered off, expecting him to follow and Jim did seem to have that ability to draw the eye.

It made Seb wonder just what the fuck the man's benefactor had been thinking to reject him, or piss him off. Not that he thought the man was alive to get that question asked of him. Seb followed, shadowed Jim down a clean bright hallway, past a left turn, and then to an office door where he stopped to open a combination built into the handle. There wasn't any attempt to hide the combination from Sebastian, so he noted it in an absent way, and then watched as Jim pushed the door open.

"Holy fuck." Fuck. Fuck, every sort of gun known to man was mounted on the wall, stacked in racks tidily, organized. There was a gorgeous Desert Eagle up perched for display, but Seb found himself drawn to the rifles that looked custom. There was an AI arctic Warfare one that looked like it had some custom work done on it. Not the British one he was used to, though. It took looked like it took Lapua, which he'd always preferred shooting to the standard NATO stuff that his L96A1 took. He did love a precision AI, and it was easy to linger over that particular rifle to the exclusion of the fancier anti-materiel weapons and showy guns and P90 and PKMs.

"You want to try it out?" Jim said. "It's a beauty. Look at you, eyes all a glow like a kid at Christmas."

He huffed a laugh, turning it over in his hands, looking at the bolt and the Zeiss scope, the barrel. "The damage I could do with this at 1000 meters..." It sent chills down his spine in a good way, made his fingers linger. "I'd love to try it out."

"Get a feel for it and we'll go try it out at the weekend," Jim said. "Handgun? Other personal weapons? I'll register it with your new ID."

"Two handguns and an older AI that uses NATO standard ammo. The handguns were de-serialized ages ago." He hefted the rifle comfortably, keeping the muzzle down as he turned back to Jim.

"Good. Now let’s get some excellent quality ID templates sorted out for you. I like picking out fake names don't you?" he said leading him onwards.

"Haven't actually had to do a lot of that..." Better to leave no name at all, but he knew the heart stopping fear of being caught without an ID. Jim moved to the door, and he followed. It seemed to amuse Jim, and god knew what the man was thinking. Seb wasn't going to blow an opportunity like that.

"Well, it can be fun assuming another identity," Jim replied as they headed down the hall way into the depth of the building through some electronic security.

It seemed to accept him with little trouble, despite that he was carrying a high calibre rifle with him. No one even seemed to bat an eye. "I'm not sure it's fun, but I'll do anything you want me to."

"How delightful," Jim said. "I like the attitude. All that loyalty just tossed away as if it wasn't a jewel without price."

He cut his eyes sideways at the man, and shook his head a little. "The person I was loyal to was given up for dead. And he probably is already. So if you're expecting some existential angsting, I'm sorry, but you're gunna feel cheated." And he focused on that feeling, of getting Will and the rest of the team out, and watching Paul go down under too many other people, and if it had've even been reasonable for a second to fuck the rest of them and get Paul out he would've watched them all die to save Paul. That was his focus.

Mycroft had always said he gave away what he was thinking too much, but he could use that, too. "I'm terribly cheated," Jim said. "Now, smile and look pretty for your mugshot. Daniel here will take something authentically passport like."

Stood on the x-marked spot on the floor, and watched the appropriately bored looking fellow with the camera gesture him to lean a little and smile. He worked his jaw for a moment and pulled a wide smile that almost passed for friendly before letting it go as soon as the shutter had gone off. "If I look stunned or high, it'd fit in with the rest of my IDs." He was willing to bet Jim photographed up to look *exactly* the way he wanted.

"That's convincingly effective," Jim said. "Full works Daniel. And a Level one pass for Sebastian Moran."

Daniel gave Jim a semi disbelieving look over the edge of his glasses, but murmured, "Yes sir," all the same. Seb lifted his eyebrows, still carrying the rifle comfortable and close as Jim looked about to spring into movement again. He just kept waiting for the loyalty test, because that was what he would've done if their positions had been reversed. There was just no way that the man wasn't more suspicious of him.

But there was no hint of it. Nothing at all. Jim was just bouncing along as if picking up random companions off the street was what he did every day. "Now you get to hang out with me for the rest of the day."

And his enthusiasm was a little contagious. It didn't fix anything, but Seb could definitely sublimate and smile something close to a real smile when he declared, "And take lots of notes in my head, because I've got a feeling nothing's going to be repeated."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm good with what you've got as well." Sherlock threw the towel roughly in the direction of the towel rack, and then casually advanced on John. "I'm not... asexual. Not completely. I know you very well, John. I probably know you better than you know yourself at this point, and I understand you're just getting to know me, I have no problem feeling attraction to you because I *know* who you are, and like you, your personality, your intelligence."

* * *

"All packed?"

The headmistress was smiling as she lingered in the door, and yes, yes, he was all packed, he'd been packed for ages, days, and he was tired, and excited and scared.

John nodded. He'd finished his basic training, and the moment he got back and crashed out there was the notification that he was Going Home.

"I'm ready," John said nervously. "As ready as I can be anyway Headmistress."

"You're a unique companion, John." It was an encouraging tone, but he really wasn't sure what to do with all of her encouragement. Would it actually help? "I'm sure you'll be fine. Would you like to get your bag and come downstairs?"

He nodded and took a deep breath getting up. He was going home. 21 nearly 22 and he was finally going home. "Is...he there?"

"Stunningly, yes. He talks quite a bit more than his brother." Her eyebrows went up slightly, but she as still smiling as she stepped back as if to encourage John to move. 

"Oh God." He took a deep breath and grabbed his bag and then followed her. He was going home, finally going home. 

"He's. I'm sure you'll find him lovely." Lovely. Oh, god, his benefactor was lovely? That didn't seem right at all. It sounded overly polite, and he felt dread briefly while he followed her down the stairs.

There was a tall man in a dark coat standing in the hallway, hands folded behind his back as he seemed to inspect one of the pictures mounted on the wall. His hair was a little longer than military standard, black, wavy, and his profile was really gorgeous. "You paid far too much for all of these paintings. I hope they were forged in house, if nothing else. John, come along. We're running late."

And that was it?

He was caught completely wrong footed and his practiced words failed him. "Uh, right. Okay."

"Poised perfection," Sherlock smirked, holding a hand out to John. "Thank you, headmistress. I can tell he's turned out just as I wanted."

She nodded to him and John moved carefully to fall in where Sherlock wanted him. "I hope I am not a disappointment to you," he said finally, prickling a little at the sarcasm.

"What, you wanted to waste time with that melodramatic, standoffish scene in the drawing room with tea?" He looked sideways at John, and gave a faux chipper wave at the Headmistress before turning on his heel. "Congratulations, by the way. Your unit commander was very pleased with your performance compared to the other young officers."

"Well some sort of scene might have been nice." John replied immediately before he could censor himself. "I have lived here a long time." He emphasized the word long - Sherlock could be rude to him, but the Headmistress deserved respect. "I'm glad you are pleased at my performance."

"Please, my brother was the epitome of manners and left her heartsick. Do you drive? Never mind, of course you drive." John heard a jingle of keys, and barely caught them as they were tossed at him. 

"So you want me to set off in a particular direction or do we just see where the one way system takes us?" John said, getting the idea that Sherlock liked a bit of snark back. That was fine with him.

"As much as I love scenic highways, I hate driving in circles around the city. I'll navigate, you drive." He did stop and hold the door for John, sort of, stepping through himself first and letting his hand linger on it long enough that it didn't catch John. "I really am proud of you. You've accomplished a great deal in a very short time, and your medical skills will come in very handy."

"To the people whose lives I save I'm sure they would agree," John replied. He should have been opening the door, but Sherlock was like a whirlwind and he was trying to learn his cues. "I'm glad you feel it is worthwhile."

There was an older Jaguar parked in front of the centre, and Sherlock was heading towards it with comfortable speed. John had a feeling he was going or spend a lot of time running after Sherlock. "It was. Best measure of your character I could possibly have. You swore up and down as a child that you wanted to be a doctor -- and had the tenacity to actually see it through. And excel at it, and enjoy it. Your surgical skills come highly recommended as well, but we'll discuss that later." 

"Right. Uh, I'm meant to be getting to know you?" he said as he headed towards the driver side. This feeling of 'having to keep up' was not one he was used to - he was used to being ahead of most people.

"We can talk at length while we drive. Honestly, though, spare me the mundane favorite food, favorite color questions. The men do enough of that when we do reconnaissance and it's unbearable. I've started lying just to keep them on their toes. And watching a man in his mid 40s sing current era boy bands is only but so hysterical." As soon as he unlocked the car, and started to put his bag in the backseat, Sherlock was already in the front passenger side.

"It is called being polite Sherlock," John felt he had to explain. "Most people do it, to show an interest."

Driving a car, well that was an interesting thing right there. "So what do you want me to know about you?"

He could pick up those other things as easily as breathing.

"Well, as you seem to have a bit of brain between your ears, I assume you've decided I'm what is colloquially called 'an asshole'. I don't waste my time with social niceties. I have you to do it for me, John." He seemed almost relieved with that as John started to settle into the seat. He was too far back from the steering wheel, and his foot didn't touch the brake. Great, another tall bastard in his life.

"I'm reserving judgement on the asshole label," John answered. "And that is part of my role as Companion… but so is helping you socialize."

Sherlock absently buckled his seatbelt, and was watching John when he glanced over again, once all the mirrors were adjusted and he'd hauled the seat up. "I think you can best help me socialise by doing it for me. You'll soon agree, though please tell me if I'm hurting your feelings or otherwise..." There was a vague handwave. "You're important to me, even if I fail to take regular note of it, and I'm sure I will when there's something a little more challenging for me to turn my attention to. The last few weeks of work have been horrifyingly mundane, I'm dying of boredom, and when I'm not dying of boredom there are things I'm unable to find an easy solution to. It's maddening."

"So basically you're telling me you've got two settings, stop and go, go, go and you have a tendency to forget about the normal things and you get bored very easily," John translated aloud, to make sure he had interpretted that correctly.  Okay, driving. A bit different from the Companion centre car but he could adapt. "Which way then?" 

"Left. You'll be on the highway for a few miles. We're just headed back to London proper. I have a flat." He leaned back in the seat after he made a vague gesture of direction. "I wouldn't call your summary inaccurate. The world isn't very challenging, as a whole. I generally find a line of research to follow when it's at its most boring, and track that down until the end. You cook, don't you?"

"All Companions can cook," he replied as he pulled out. Okay, into London. "If you tell me your preferences, that will help." Sounded like Sherlock forgot about food then when he was doing something, that was something to note. 

"Standard fare. Anything, really. When I've been out with a unit, the problem solves itself. Everyone else gets in the mess line and you end up following them to continue the discussion." He was quiet for a half a second, if that. "I wouldn't get too comfortable in the flat. Well, we'll be returning there soon but we'll also be going downrange again after my two weeks leave is up. Afghanistan, we've had some problems there. Our Russian allies and some organized crime groups have inflicted unnecessary intrigue into our mission."

"So we will be going active duty then," John replied, his heart rate speeding up immediately. "How is that going to work? With what you do?"

"I'm Military Intelligence. Specialized, of course. The rank and the uniform are mere formalities which give me easy access to the areas where I'm most needed. There are situations which occur that require a more thorough understanding of what happened than an investigations team is capable of yielding. Three weeks ago, from a burnt out shell of a stone building, I was able to deduce tribes and families from which hostage-takers had come, as well as who was supplying them, leading to some interesting supply lines we're still pursuing, and an approximation of the state of the hostage and what direction they had headed. It was unfortunately deemed by higher authority as unnecessary to pursue. I would have done that as well. There will be circumstances where I will pull you out of the nearest clinic and you will join me."

"Right," John nodded to that and that at least sounded interesting. "But there are times where you will be under the radar?"

Rank and uniform were a means to an end for them both. He would end up with rank just by virtue of being a medic.

"Frequently. Appropriate civilian gear is necessary, though neither of us go native very easily, do we? I suppose you tan." He was looking at John's arm, almost thoughtfully. "Yes, but with freckles. I do like the freckles."

"I bet you burn," John said smiling a little as he followed the flow of traffic. "So do I take it, you basically want me around to make sure you take care of yourself?"

He made an amused sound, and John could only guess what he was doing as he kept his eyes on the road. "I've survived this long without you, John. I'm certainly competent out on my own, excepting a few road-bumps which I'm sure my acquaintances will be more than happy to tell you about at length. But it would be a nice luxury."

"A luxury, okay," John tilted his head a little. Well he could be worse off he supposed. "I didn't mean to imply you were incompetent."

He was pretty sure he wasn't going to get is head taken off for saying it, though. Sherlock seemed very casual and un-benefactor like. "I have previously struggled with that aspect of life. Making sure I take care of myself. I've managed to kick all of my addictions, but smoking, with its social functions and connotations, has been a struggle."

"I'll hide your cigarettes then," John teased lightly, staying on the same road until Sherlock told him otherwise. "So you don't want Benefactor Companion protocol. I should have knelt when I first met you. It is expected."

Although apparently not from the Holmes family.

"And what would I have done, but tell you to stand up?" He could see out of the corner of his eye that Sherlock leaned forward. "If you want to kneel -- and I observe it can be a satisfying compulsion to give in to -- let's keep that private. You're a doctor and a captain in the army. You shouldn't be kneeling in front of a major."

"I have no particular urge," he said clearing his throat. "That I know of."

He did have a lot of theoretical knowledge of that sort of thing, Companions were very well trained in that respect, but no practical knowledge. "So, uh when is the actual presentation?"

"Two days. I thought you'd prefer more free time after than before." 

"Thank you, yes." He smiled and tried to relax. "So, uh.. anything that really annoys you?"

"Stupidity." He was pretty sure Sherlock was giving him a significant look just then. "I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Look Sherlock, I know that you are brilliant so everyone is likely to appear stupid compared with you," he said. "So I'm just trying to adapt."

"Don't. You're exactly what I wanted. You don't need to adjust. I've been warned that 'cope' might be the better word." 

"Cope... right.." John cleared his throat. "The Headmistress seemed to imply things might not be typical with you. But that's fine, she never regarded me as particularly typical."

"You're my companion, and I plan to uphold my half of the bargain as well." Well, that was normal, and hopefully not something Sherlock had to talk himself into doing.

"I appreciate it. Uh, should I be turning off anywhere?" he asked. Sherlock tended to have a post box that diverted mail to wherever he was, rather than an address. "Is the flat a permanent base?"

"Yes. Take the next exit, and then you'll go right. I occasionally pick up interesting bits of work that catch my interest. I helped Mrs. Hudson when her husband was in jail, and she's let me buy the topmost flat out. I like it quite a lot." To buy a flat rather than rent it, apparently. "We'll share the bedroom upstairs. There's a secondary bedroom that you can use as a study if you like, or I'll continue using it as storage."

"Right, thank you." So they would be sharing a bed. That was good, a good indication of commitment to the process. He indicated and turned as directed. "What sort of things take your interest when you are not doing your Military intelligence work?"

"Murder, crime. London has a fascinating criminal under world, with its own pattern of life and ebb and flow. I'll teach you to recognise that. I've a standing offer to join the Yard whenever I tire of military service. Soon. There's still unfinished business. I have a nemesis, you see. He stalked you during your first year of formation." 

"Really?" John glanced at him. "Who? I...one of the others at the hospital? " Why on earth would they stalk him?

"No idea. I received pictures of you anonymously, warning me to keep a better eye on you." Sherlock was looking dispassionately out the front window. "Which we did. Mycroft put a detail on you."

"Seriously? Wow.." John tried to think if he done anything really embarrassing during that time. Possibly one or two things a well-trained Companion shouldn't do. "But you hadn't even taken me home...what could they hope to achieve?"

"Blackmail material? Particularly if they decided to kidnap you. Or perhaps to send the message that they knew I had a weak spot." He shrugged his shoulders. "I've been playing cat and mouse with this particular group, and will continue to do so until I catch them."

"But you didn't have a weak spot," John answered following the road. "I mean, you could have not accepted me as Companion if you thought I was compromised."

"Don't be stupid. What would I do, order another companion surgeon who's capable of balancing it with military tasks? Yes, I'm sure they have them just lying around. Never-mind that would be letting them *win*."

Ah, and that was the important thing. Sherlock wouldn't want to let them win, whoever they were."I can't think of anyone it could be," he admitted. "A lot of people came in and out of the hospital regularly."

"I know. No one seemed to be the proper suspect." He sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Given the last month, even a cold lead could be worth following. I'll have to have you look over a few booking books."

He nodded as he pulled in where Sherlock seemed to be vaguely indicating with a nod to the turn off. He guessed parking wasn't on the immediate doorstep, it rarely was in London. "So, here close enough?"

"It's close enough. We'll go up a block." Sherlock started to unbuckle his seatbelt before John had even parked.

All go then. He barely stopped and he had to fling himself out of the car, remembering to grab his meagre possessions before he had to try to catch up with Sherlock's long loping walk. 

Off like a shot, all casual lope as he led the way up a block and then turned. "The cafe below is good in a pinch as well, though the shopkeeper has two wives who don't know each other," Sherlock said loud and casually as well.

"And how do you know that?" John felt compelled to ask. Sherlock was pretty fit, but he had just been on basic training so he was fit himself, but exhausted.

"Observation, John. I'll talk you through it the next time we go there." Probably in earshot of the man, and John didn't know wether to be amused or horrified or just check whatever they ordered for spit. He stopped at 221b.

It looked fairly nondescript from the outside but as he entered and went up the narrow stairs, and Sherlock let them inside he got more of a feel for his Benefactor. There were projects everywhere. Piles of things that clearly showed distraction from one thing to another. Books out in piles, on the floor, piles of papers, strange samples and beakers. It was like an Aladdin's cave. "Looks like you've been keeping busy."

"Trying to." It left him trying to work out... just what his benefactor was, other than a genius. "Set your bag down, I'm mostly sure nothing will run off with it..." Sherlock closed the door, stopping to take off his coat. "Welcome home."

He grinned at that. "Yeah, I am aren't I?" It was a very undignified rising bubble of elation. He had Come Home and it was years of preparation, and here he was standing in his Benefactors crazy flat and all he could think of was how cool it all was.

"You are." Sherlock was smirking a little as he came to a stop in front of John, hands tucked into his pockets. Just watching John look and take everything in, probably noting, yes, that was some experiment for something or other that John was sure he'd hear about.

He was probably beaming ridiculously, and it was either drop to his knees which Sherlock didn't seem to want or make some other demonstration of happiness so he opted for the hug - or manly embrace as the lecturers often refered to it.

"Thank you," he said simply. "Thank you. Uh, should I make a cup of tea?"

He didn't expect for Sherlock to hook his arm loosely around John's waist. It wasn't exactly a natural gesture, but Sherlock seemed to be testing it, looking at John thoughtfully before he let his hand slid off of John, fingers lingering lightly on his backside. "Yes. Yes, do that. Sweet and white. I prefer the stuff I have to whatever they served at the Centre. Mind the rat poison." 

The jolt of a very natural desire went through him. 21 years of celibacy and that casual contact was like a spark on petrol doused tinder. "Sweet and white. Right. I can do that." he had to clear his throat slightly as he orientated himself, putting the kettle on, finding his way around the kitchenette.

Well, near celibacy.

Sherlock didn't say anything else, or make casual conversation. For all John knew, he'd settled into the clutter out there and was reading a book. There were certainly enough *books* around, which was something John could get behind. Sometimes on quiet afternoons, he and Seb would just flop out in their room and read. Seb had liked to read the best passages aloud, the ones that struck him in a certain way, or made him laugh. And the hideous run-on sentences as well.

So Sherlock was maths, science, military, and well read if the clutter was anything to go on. John had never been afraid of getting a boorish illiterate benefactor. Sherlock was too, too sharp for that, even if there was rat-poison on a shelf, semi-carefully separated from the box of tea-bags John had used. The kitchenette was semi-abused, but clean. Under-used was probably the better term, but he could fix that. Would have to if they didn't want to starve to death.

He reckoned at least some of his first few days would end up in cleaning. It was a nice flat, he liked it and it felt homey. Good location too. He opened the fridge for the milk and stared for a moment. "Sherlock, any reason we've got what appears to be a human hand in the fridge?"

"Performing an experiment on the decay rate of lightly refrigerated human remains. Close the door, thank you." It was an absent sort of answer. Maybe he'd been right about the book thing. "It's only three days in."

"And you eat food that's been in with that? " John asked. Well, things were sealed away. "Never mind. I can see I'm going to find all sorts when I start clearing up." Milk, sugar, tea...there. All done. "So how many experiments have you got running right now?"

He wasn't reading a book when John strolled into the living-room, but staring at some spot at a middle distance, at nothing in the air, perched in a worn leather chair that didn't match the chair across from it, back to the window.  He turned his head fractionally, but didn't take his eyes off of whatever he wasn't looking at. "Oh, thirty or so. Sit down, John."

He passed over the tea and sat down, with his own drink. "You're watching a lot...is this part of the observing thing?"

"Hmn? No, no, I was thinking." He gestured one long-fingered hand through the air in front of him, as if he were tearing away a piece of paper or a map. "Networks. I'm afraid I'm still working an old mission in my head. I neglected the importance of a 'gut' reaction, weighed against what had seemed at the time to be obvious logic. I was *wrong*." He sounded hurt, wounded, and if it was an 'old' mission, then getting it *wrong* had to have bothered him.

It was interesting to watch. "People make mistakes, everyone does." He'd screwed up and people had suffered for it in the hospital. "You're too hard on yourself."

"And for my mistake, one soldier is still in hospital, another died, a third captured, no doubt dead and interrogated already." Sherlock seemed faintly angry with himself. "The government was greatly harmed by my mistake." 

"All you can do is learn from it," John offered, sensing that Sherlock had little tolerance to mistakes. "Which I'm sure you already have."

"I've never been wrong before." He reached for his teacup.

"Contrary to popular belief, you are human,"John said softly. "The ability to make mistakes and move on is a big thing."

"Sebastian died, and my brother's long time partner and security chief is MIA." Sherlock sipped his tea, watching John as he said it.

John's jaw dropped, literally dropped open in stunned amazement. This had to be some sick joke or..something. "No. No, you're joking right? You're messing with me Sherlock aren't you?"

"I wish I were," he said quietly. "He was stabbed -- poisoned, apparently. I saw him during the debrief, he looked fine. A little pale. He fell asleep on the sofa with my brother that night, and didn't wake up."

"Oh god." John swallowed, feeling his eyes sting. He shook his head. "Not Seb..." His Seb, one of the main reasons he had been looking forward to the Presentation because Seb was meant to be there, taking the piss out of him, doing… whatever Seb did. "I don't believe it, I..."

"I was inclined to believe it was a cover for some deep undercover operation, but my brother's grief has been intractable. He's refused to have a funeral until he manages to get Paul's body back as well." Sherlock shrugged a little. "I'm sorry, John."

"He was my best friend for years," John said feeling gut punched. "He's the...he was the strong one."

"He was very strong, John. And he was always quick to snap. I liked that. And he was a staunch defender of Mycroft. He deserves a posthumous knighthood for that." Sherlock exhaled, almost a sigh. "Neither of them thought the mission was a good idea."

"Then why? Why did it happen?" He shouldn't ask, but the words burst out. He needed to know.

"Because Mycroft and myself agreed that the raid was an excellent opportunity, and logically sound. Unfortunately, Paul and Sebastian were correct in their unease, and the site was heavily fortified on the interior. They were waiting." Sherlock rested his teacup on his knee. "Now tell me I need to process it and not be hard on myself, John."

He squeezed his eyes shut as his companion training warred with his grief and need to blame. Sherlock was his Benefactor, he was to be cherished and encouraged, protected and yet...

And yet, was it his fault? Did he poison the knife? "You are not God, Sherlock," he said trying to swallow.

"I'm an arrogant bastard, and I dismissed them because neither of them are as intelligent as Mycroft or myself. And they *died*, because neither one of us are actually in the line of fire. We're safe, removed from it all... Mycroft hasn't actually left the house in weeks." And John was just trying to process what was going on. Sebastian and dead didn't fit in his mind. He could hardly imagine the Seb he knew sitting down on a sofa and never waking up.

John breathed slowly, having to put down the cup of tea because his hands were shaking. "It doesn't feel real." Two years since he had seen him, and he'd been waiting and he'd never see him again. "We're taught, all of us are taught, there's always someone better than us. Faster, smarter, stronger, whatever. Seb would know...would have known that." The past tense was stabbing him in the chest every time he slipped.

Sherlock was motionless, watching him. "I think I've finally met my match as well. It's... I suspect it's the same group that stalked you. Mycroft's head of security was the target of the snatch. The other operatives were left injured but alive, one very seriously. Only Sebastian got the poisoned treatment. They knew who was coming, and who to kill, who to capture." Sherlock stood up, graceful, and came to stand briefly beside John's chair. He leaned in, moved the tea-cup onto the counter, put a hand on John's back slowly. "No, it doesn't seem real. He was telling me to shut up, and chain-smoking when they left. Everything seemed all right. He even handed off Mycroft's security to another member of the unit."

John just shook his head. "No… he wouldn't die just like that? Would he? To escape being shot or blown up, to die like that..."

"It doesn't seem to type," Sherlock agreed, fingers rubbing gently on John's back as he settled on the arm of the chair. "I did manage to get my hands on the security video, however. The newly installed head of security was cooperative. I don't. You don't need to see."

"I want to see him," John said immediately. "I need to see." He couldn't ignore it.

"Stubborn." Sherlock sounded soft, almost fond as he tapped his fingers on John's back before shifting off of the chair. "Stay there."

John stayed, still chilled and numb himself, until the tape was put on. No audio and he wished he'd had more of the lip reading skills because there was Seb moving with that familiar gait, looking worried, talking with Mycroft who did seem genuinely distraught.

The man had a gun in his hands, and Seb took it from him, tucked it into the back of his pants. He was still lanky, good looking in a very Seb way. He looked too pale, worn out. It was strange to see him tucking himself against the other man -- Mycroft, John supposed, given that he looked a bit like Sherlock, tall -- in a comfortable way. He'd always wondered if Seb was really all right, really happy with his Benefactor, because he never talked about it.

It seemed he was, from that and then it was… going to sleep and he looked peaceful, he didn't move. There was a faint blue tinge he could spot around his lips, but it was just subtle. It was possible.

Mycroft slouched into him, fingers moving occasionally, rubbing at his shoulder. They stayed there for a while, and Sherlock carefully fast forwarded it along, closer to the end. Mycroft shifted, leaned back as if he was cracking his back, and Seb tumbled sideways. After that, it was all alarm.

He shook his head. It seemed like a movie or something from TV. "No." He took a deep breath. "What do you see?"

"You're the doctor, John. What do *you* see?" Sherlock shifted, leaning on the arm of the chair again. "Pale skin, blue lips. He was always terribly affectionate for as mouthy as he was, I wouldn't call it a symptom."

"Could it be fake?" he said with desperate hope. "...please Sherlock, could it be?"

He paused the video; Seb was half sprawled on the sofa, partially on the floor by then, and Mycroft started off the screen in a hurry. "Anything could be a fake, John."

That was probably as close to being kind as Sherlock could be. "I just need to believe that....for now."

"If it is fake," Sherlock murmured, "mentioning your suspicion to my brother will only be rebuffed. If it's real, mentioning your suspicion to my brother may see him try that suicide attempt."

"I understand," John replied clenching his fingers and releasing them. "Fuck." 

Sherlock closed the lid, and set the laptop aside, still perched on the side of the chair arm. "We'll see. If, when, we find Paul. If Sebastian's alive, he'll come out of where-ever he is when that happens."

He nodded silently, gripping the arm of the chair. His tea had gone cold. All in all his Homecoming had taken a sudden turn for the worse.

Sherlock didn't seem unsettled by it, sliding a hand over his back again. "I'm sorry. I thought it better that you know beforehand, so you weren't... looking for him at the presentation."

"I would have been," John admitted. "I imagined seeing him again there." He appreciated the contact and leaned into Sherlock, suddenly feeling very tired.

"I imagined seeing him there as well. He was looking forward to you coming home." And it sounded like he would've been able to see Seb a lot. If things had been all right. That video had to be a fake, it just. Had to be a fake.

It was going to take time to sink in and if he could just hold on to that thread, that possibility he might just manage to hold things together.

* * *

Sherlock was being very good to him, John supposed. His first night home hadn't been very romantic, or. Or anything but sad, really. Sherlock had puttered around with books and half-explaining experiments (keep up, John, keep up, being a constant mantra through it) when the desperate urge to sleep had finally hit John so hard he'd gone to bed alone. Sherlock hadn't seemed to mind, and had said he'd be up eventually.

The bedroom was like the rest of the flat -- eccentric, a bit like a gale had hit and no one had cleaned up afterwards. He planned to tackle all of that in the morning, start tidying just a little. Just so the space felt comfortable for him as well as Sherlock. When he woke up, Sherlock had apparently joined him in bed after all, sprawled and half tangled in bedding, dead to the world.

He lay there for a bit, just staring at the ceiling. It  had shaken him more than he would like to admit in the company of his new Benefactor to hear about Seb. He'd always known that with a military specialty there was a chance Seb could get killed, they'd even talked about it. But the reality was something else. He needed to get a grip, needed to pour himself into his own purpose like they said. These things happened and yeah, he didn't have to like it, but had to live with it. 

Sherlock looked very young lying down, face smoothed in sleep.  Pale and his hair mussed and all long limbed. All of the animation and sharpness of gesture was smoothed away by sleep. He didn't snore, or hadn't that night that John had noticed. He moved a little -- active sleepers were something they'd been warned about -- and was turning over again as John watched, an arm shoved under the pillow. Sherlock was easy to fall into; there wasn't any awkwardness, no Sherlock rebuffing him or putting up unnecessary barriers. They'd had Chinese take-away for dinner, and Sherlock had been quite animated, telling John things without hesitance. Like he'd been there just the day before, like they were old friends catching up rather than Companion and Benefactor. 

He was trying to not think about sleep too much just then, because he could still see the video playing in his mind. He could see Seb slumped against his Benefactor in apparent ease. If it was real... At least he hadn't seemed to be in pain. He wasn't sure if it were better or worse that Seb hadn't seen it coming. At least he hadn't been alone. 

"You're thinking too loudly," Sherlock muttered into the pillow, half smothering himself for a moment. "Tick tick tick. Ugn, what time is it?"

"Late. Nearly 9." That was incredibly late after basic training. Felt like he had slept the day away. "I better get up." But he didn't move. Couldn't for some reason. 

"Holiday." Sherlock turned his head, blinking and bringing a hand out from the sheets to rub crust from his eyes. "Emotional exhaustion is far more depleting and less satisfying than physical exhaustion."

"I'll get up in a minute," John replied exhaling hard at the thought of facing the world. "Did you sleep well? I didn't hear you come up."

"Gave up at one twenty six." Sherlock had a nice voice, the words precise but not sharp. Humming, almost. He shifted, leaning up on his elbows. "We have no definative plans, though I expect that Detective Inspector Lestrade will come by with some muddled mess from the Yard and a mixed message of concern in regards to my brother. Shouldn't take more than twenty minutes after tea, that. Which means we have the rest of the day for whatever you like." 

"I'd like to clean up, get some groceries in..." John said. "Get to feel what it might be like to have a home with you, that sort of thing."

"Hmmn." Sherlock was peering at him, watching his face like a hawk watching prey, and then leaned in to kiss him. It was slow, and warm, and unexpected, Sherlock with his eyes half open as he pulled back a little and traced the line of John's lip with his tongue. There was hardly any space between them when Sherlock hummed, "No standard interest in making out? My god, did you burn your How To Be An Annoying Companion manual?"

John relished it. It had been a long time between kisses for him and it felt too damn good. "I wasn't sure if it would be ..uh...appropriate." But one kiss and he was definitely feeling how appropriate it could be.

Sherlock shifted from leaning over John to moving over him,  shifting to straddle him, still tucked beneath the sheets. He felt a knee bump his, felt the weight of Sherlock's body, watched his benefactor pull an amused expression. "I'm not completely naked. I have briefs on. And honestly, if you think I can't hide anything we do from the prying eyes of the council..." 

"I'm sure you can but..they'd know at the presentation if we had...you know," John answered. Warmth on top of him, solid and, yeah, that was good. He liked that, his body enjoyed the prospect of something happening. Anything happening.

Sherlock pressed his mouth to John's cheekbone, and gave a quiet thoughtful sound. "They can only tell the difference between the standard sex toy stretching and sex if I leave fingerprints on your hips, John. Or you look particularly guilty standing up on stage. I don't know yet how guilty you tend to look, and I don't have any reliable witnesses to question. If you *want* to wait..." 

"I... are you kidding me? We spend out lives waiting for sex.." John answered. "What do you want to do Sherlock?"

Sherlock was quiet for perhaps a heartbeat of time -- it was hardly a pause at all. "I want to see how you look when you're panting for it. I want you begging out of desperation, shattered with wanting," he drawled, shifting to lightly kiss the line of John's nose. They both still smelled a little like take away from the night before, and toothpaste and sleeping, but that was all right. "No more cleaning, errands or tidying up after Lestrade makes his appearance and leaves. I just want it to be you and I."

The surge of arousal at that was like a flashpoint. "God Sherlock...that..." Sounded the sexiest thing he had ever heard and a definitely a turn on. "I better get it all done before he turns up then." And he realized it was a hell of a distraction.

Sherlock's mouth curled into a smirk. "Or we'll continue living in somewhat dusty squalor, yes. However did you get through Basic, John?" His fingers danced down John's side, leaning up on one elbow before almost springing out of the bed, taking half of the sheets with him. "We'll need to get moving if you want to get out and do the shopping."

"I can rough it," John answered, getting up more sluggishly. "This is about… being here. Making my place in your place." There was something grounding about it.

"Will you be feathering out a nest next? I'm disinclined towards heirs. That was Mycroft's job." He said it over his shoulder, wandering towards the bathroom.

"I'm saving myself up for the promised all day fun," John called back. The temptation was immense though, but he wanted to be clean, fresh and more together for their first time.

"... You could join me," Sherlock noted. "Whatever you want to make."

"I'll put the kettle on," John said pulling on an old jumper and trousers. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"I was just going to run a shower." He leaned around the door jam.

He found himself smiling a little and that was a miracle in itself. "Do you need help in there?"

It was more an academic clutter. Maybe they could get another couple of shelves... "Excellent deduction," Sherlock laughed. It was a very pleased sounding laugh, smug.

"If you wanted heirs I would have assumed you would have picked out a female companion," John answered. He pulled up the bed with practiced ease, gave a quick tidy around as he wandered about. It actually wasn't that bad at all - clean but with a tendency to clutter. 

"I'll have to test my hypothesis about companions and showers later then." But it wasn't a protest, and shortly John could hear water running by the time he reached the downstairs.

He cleaned up in the kitchenette, learning where things should be and could be. He smiled to himself thinking about the rest of the day that lay ahead - the intensity in Sherlock's expression boded well and he needed the distraction right now. There really was nothing in the kitchen in terms of food though. All that was in the cupboards was a couple of forlorn cans of soup.

Possibly the best route to breakfast was to pop into the shop downstairs and get something to go, then go out and shop.

He headed back upstairs to see if he could get in the shower briefly and caught a glimpse of Sherlock wandering naked that made him stop in his tracks. There was something almost unearthly about him and he just stood staring. He knew he was good looking but Sherlock had never been the type of benefactor to send him naked photos.

Or, really, pictures at all. He was tall, muscled, unmarred and pale. Casual about it as well, rubbing a towel through his hair. He tilted his head sideways, and looked at John with a quirk to his mouth.

"You're doing that on purpose," John said looking at him. "Fuck Sherlock, you're gorgeous."

He seemed amused, and unabashed as he turned a little more towards John. Half hard, a comfortable looking size, and John had to drag his eyes up. "I suppose. Please tell me you're not going to have some inferiority complex, I don't really have time to nurse you through a series of suspicions that I'm sleeping around when you're not looking. I've used it to my advantage a time or two for work, but I really have little interest in casual sex."

"Companions are not a monogamous relationship for the Benefactor Sherlock," John replied. "Inferiority, well..." He didn't look like that, that was for sure. "I'm good with what I've got, lets put it that way."

"I'm good with what you've got as well." He threw the towel roughly in the direction of the towel rack, and then casually advanced on John. "I'm not... asexual. Not completely. I know you very well, John. I probably know you better than you know yourself at this point, and I understand you're just getting to know me, I have no problem feeling attraction to you because I *know* who you are, and like you, your personality, your intelligence."

"Well I'm glad you are attracted to me," John said. "That's something we always worry about." He found himself looking up to Sherlock again.

He was going to end up with a permanent crick in his neck, because Sherlock got in close like his personal space didn't matter, settling a hand on his shoulder. "I know. And wether or not it should be monogamous, it's going to be. I can't even imagine the agony of getting to know someone else to the point where I'd consider it a possibility." He pulled at John, then -- not for another kiss, but to walk him out of the bathroom. "So, shall we skip tea and go out for breakfast? I assume you found the cupboards unsatisfactory."

"Have you been living on soup?" John asked allowing himself to be man handled. "Convenient cafe downstairs and all that."

"I go out a great deal, when I care to." He pulled away long enough to quick pull out briefs, trousers, a button down shirt, and throw them on quickly.

"On your own?" he asked finding his own clothes. He rather liked the jumper - it was a guilty secret. Something he had bought just for comfort rather than appearance.

Sherlock didn't seem to care at all, even if he managed to look effortlessly dashing by the time he had shoes on and was headed for the stairs. "Yes, of course on my own. I happen to rather enjoy my own company."

"Some people wouldn't, "John offered. "Okay, I'm ready, do you eat in there or bring it back?"

"There is fine. I enjoy watching people. You can find out a great deal about a person without ever having to say a word to them." Observation, observation, more observations. He hit the front door at what felt like a jog to John, taking the stairs two at a time.

His initial instincts had been correct, he was going to spend a lot of time running to catch up with Sherlock. 

It wasn't a busy coffee shop, and John immediately figured out he would be doing the ordering which was as it should be. He was the Companion, he made things comfortable.

And Sherlock seemed delighted to cede what was no doubt a boring menial task, and to pass John a twenty pound note before going to slouch into a chair in the corner that also had a good view of the shop and the street. 

It was easier being with Sherlock than he thought although he could tell things weren't always this laid back. Sherlock needed stimulation, and he was like a new toy at the moment.

A new interesting toy, buy John expected change. Still, it hadn't been awkward at all, and that was a little surprising. He headed back to Sherlock's spot with two cups, and a promise that they'd bring food out to them.

"Here we go," he said handing over the cup. "So what have you spotted while I've been up there?"

"A dully quiet morning. A couple on the verge of divorce passed the window, one drunken girl who regrets what she did last night, and an old retired fellow with a Rottweiler." He gestured to the other cafe patrons, and John heard the woman two tables away mutter 'bastard.'

"Sherlock," he said warningly though he was interested. "tell me how you figured that without pissing off the entire bar."

"Quite too late for that." He took a sip, and gestured to the window, where there was no one now. "They were walking together, but there was no connection between them. The woman was slightly ahead of her husband, posture good, dressed well. The man was rumpled, sapped. Lack of sleep, mouth drawn with an expression one could characterize as misery. They were chatting, but it didn't matter. She's going to have him served with papers today and they both know it."

John looked at them. "Okay, I see what you are saying but how did that become on the verge of divorce rather than just having had an argument?"

"Her hair. Obviously." Sherlock looked on the verge of rolling his eyes. "Go on, try."

"Obviously..." John cleared his throat. Hair, what was different about her hair? It was neat and in place, coloured somehow. What did that mean? Feeling her age, impressing someone?

"Her hair is coloured and...looks like she's been somewhere upmarket to have it done? If not for him then...uh..."

"For herself. There isn't anyone else. She's just tired and moving on. She's completely othered him in her head. Look at their bodies." Sherlock took another sip, and the glanced up when the server set their light breakfasts down.

"Well I can see the tension," he murmured. "We were taught that." How to read their Benefactor, how to manage them.

"Good. I want you to use this," he returned, picking up his fork. "It's important that you can read your environment."

"I can read bits, but not like you," he said. "I'm hoping I can learn some - I'm pretty good at diagnosis."

"Pay attention, John, and think. I'm sure you'll learn. You'll never be as good as I am, of course, but..." He gave a one shouldered shrug.

"Well of course," he said dryly and quirked a smile. "How did you learn?"

"Natural talent." Sherlock ate a little, scanning the room once again and seeming to dismiss it all in the same motion. "And years of practice and prioritization of information."

"It must be like a constant flow of information all the time," John replied. "Ever not been able to read something?"

"No." Sherlock gestured to the room vaguely with a fork. "Never. The world gets exceedingly boring for me. Every once in a while there's a spark, a spike. Something intriguing, but then I solve it and it's done. And there's so much useless information."

"That must be,,,pretty depressing," John said trying to imagine a world that seemed dull and flat most of the time.

"Unbearable," Sherlock murmured, taking a sip of his coffee. "I'll let you read over my childhood health records some time."

"I can imagine," John replied. No wonder Sherlock was driven to extremes to feel something of worth. Drugs, he bet there had been drugs in there somewhere. "But you've been coping with that."

"Heroin and cocaine both." He offered it in a murmur finishing off his toast. "Smoking has been unbearably hard to kick. It didn't help that Sebastian got Mycroft smoking again."

"You just need something to occupy you," John said confidently. He smiled a little. "You could take up...knitting."

"Boring." Sherlock nudged his leg beneath the table. "Finish your breakfast, we have things to do. A stock of supplies to lay in."

"More than just soup. I'm going to cook at some point," John replied. "You didn't pay all that money to get fed beens on toast."

"So, impress me." The edges of his mouth quirked a little. "You can pick the shopping."

"This would be easier if I had a bloody clue what you like Sherlock," John pointed out. "As far as I can tell you subsist on air."

"It's all very..." He gave a vague wave. "I just don't care. Whatever you want to try, John, I'm sure it'll be fine."

"You eat meat I assume?" John queried. "Do you like spices? Sauces? anything?"

"Spice. I like spices. I like a good curry." Sherlock seemed to at least briefly be thinking. "I like when food has layers and interesting things to it, but it's never interesting for long. I just fail to see the appeal." Nevermind that good didn't have an *appeal*, it wasn't like sex.

"Maybe I'll challenge you to identify what I've put in things,"John teased a little. "Please, it'll help."

Sherlock smiled again, and inclined his head. "All right. I blame the military for ruining my palette. It's whatever we scraped out of the local market, mixed with food that's been treated to withstand a chemical attack and a nuclear blast at the same time."

"You can still make it good," John said. "We don't get to sleep until we can cook well. And organise things like finances."

"Finances are non problematic, and already well in hand. I spend well below my means, even when I was putting you through school. I own the flat outright. Minimal expenses." And probably something an analytical mind like Sherlock';s could completely crush when he turned his mind towards it.

"Just as well I'm a surgeon because I'd have no traditional Companion duties to perform," John said.

"It's a waste to have to handle solely such menial tasks." Sherlock was looking out the window. "I believe watching out for my lack of public skills will be quite enough."

"I'm beginning to gather that," he replied. "So, you going to watch me clean?"

He wasn't going to suggest joining in.

"Oh yes. The top shelves could use a dust as well. There's a predictability in dust. Are you ready to go?" 

"Yeah, I want to get the place cleared before your friend comes around," John said. He was actually half looking forward to it.

"When did I give the impression he's a friend?" Sherlock asked blandly as they stood to leave. "He's a colleague and an associate of Mycroft's."

"My mistake," John said with a smile, although he was pretty sure he wasn't mistaken. But unlike his Benefactor he didn't expect to be right all the time. It was time to get back and get himself grounded in the flat and then later he could hold Sherlock to his promise.

It was going to be a good night.

* * *

As soon as Benefactor Lestrade -- a nice, *normal* seeming sort of fellow, the kind who played football in his spare time and was dull and liked sports, Sherlock had sighed, because he really actually was as unfaceted as he seemed, no hidden layers with DI Lestrade, no -- was gone, Sherlock had gone up to the bedroom without a word, locked the door behind him, and told John he'd come get him in fifteen minutes.

He should've set a clock by it. He'd been half organizing some books, trying to not declutter so much as get a feel for what it was and what might be hazardous, when Sherlock had swept down the stairs in nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms to drab John up the stairs. His jumper ended up on the hand-rail, and the only reason his shoes and trousers managed to make it to the bedroom was because Sherlock had apparently calculated the likelihood of him tripping and fracturing his spine if they didn't. 

It was a whirlwind, and he didn't really have a chance to resist. Didn't want to resist, not when he was sitting on clean, fresh, sheets, with Sherlock kneeling on the floor between his legs, one of them hitched up over Sherlock's shoulder. There was one long, amazing finger up his arse, and his Benefactor was sucking his cock wetly, noisily, head bent as he made a show of it.

It felt amazing and when it came to Sherlock's ambition to see him panting and desperate for it, he didn't have to wait long because he was already practically whimpering. Sherlock seemed to be enjoying himself greatly as well.

There was a determined look on his face, and there was no denying that Sherlock was hard. There was already a cockring sitting to the side, as either a promise or a threat. He wasn't sure, when Sherlock took him in to the base again, and hummed as he pulled back with a messy noise, letting his mouth linger against the tip. "Another finger?"

"Oh god," John groaned. "I'm never going to make it. Fuck...Sherlock, yeah..." It was going to feel massive, he was sure of that.

The finger in his arse eased back, and then there was a firmer push of two fingers that time, Sherlock sucking him down to the root again like his dick was an ice lolly and there was nothing to it. His nose nudged against John's stomach, and he could feel him exhale.

"How the hell...that's...Oh god how am I not going to come from this?" John groaned making twitching motions and noises that frankly embarrassed himself.

"Mmhm." Sherlock *swallowed*, or at least John guessed that was the feeling a flutter and clench of muscle against the head of his cock before Sherlock pulled back again. He twisted the fingers up John's ass gently, and gestured with the hand he'd been steadying against John's lower back to the cockring. "Lean over and snag that."

He reached unsteadily. "I'm going to explode Sherlock," he said barely able to get the words out but handing over the cockring. He knew what it was, they'd even tried them on but he couldn't imagine it was going to do anything with this feeling.

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows at John, and leaned to make John lay back on the bed, kissing his stomach and rising up from his knees to push John back. One handed, he managed to get the cockring around John and snap it into place. "You're going to be begging first."

"I'm already begging," John said half desperately. "Jesus..." The tightness on his cock made him squirm. It felt like they had been at this for an eternity and his still hadn't been allowed to come which was red hot, but for someone with the distractibility of a butterfly, Sherlock had endless patience at this.

Focus. Laser focus, as he got John to sprawl out on the bed, still between his legs. He kissed the bend of John's thigh, but not his cock, and kept moving the now two fingers in and out and back in. His free hand pressed against John's stomach lightly. "Mmm, I like the way you taste."

"Glad I had that show," John answered and then made a very unmanly squeak of noise when Sherlock moved his fingers in a certain way.

Sherlock hummed happily against his skin, and then repeated the gesture, before sliding his hand back. "Need more lubricant. Hold on, I have another type."

He groaned at the absence of touch. Sometimes they worried about whether they were going to have to act their way through enjoying sex, but jesus christ on a pogo stick, no problem with that.

John let his hands slid down his own sides, catching his breath a little as Sherlock stood with his back to him, digging through a drawer quickly. He had a tan, just a little. Warmer colored skin at his face, his arms from his shoulders to his hands, tops of his thighs to his feet, but he was still pale, porcelain pale at his back, his ass, And unselfconscious as he wandered back to the bed with a tub of something, rather than a tube. "Damaging to latex, but I wasn't planning on using a condom."

"Yeah..." That was par for the course with Companions unless they were trying to avoid an heir. "Okay, I'm getting ready to start begging Sherlock because you are driving me crazy here."

"I could tie you down with neckties. Scarves. Something." He knelt on the bed, leaning over John to kiss him again. His mouth was still wet at the edges, and warm, and the kisses were almost too easy.

"You could do what you want," John replied enthusiastically because right now that sounded like a fucking fantastic idea. He kissed back enthusiastically.

A hand slid over his cheek, and Sherlock pulled back. "You *would* like that, wouldn't you?"

"I guess... yeah," he had to admit suddenly it seemed like the hottest thing on earth. "I mean, I haven't tried it as such."

There went the butterfly attention span, then, because Sherlock was gone, walking to the closet again. "Ties then. Hmn."

He wriggled a little, looking at his swollen cock. If he weren't a doctor he would be alarmed at the color it was going. They'd tried it before at the centre but it was in a non sexual context. He had enjoyed it in an absent sort of way, but it felt more than casual.

This was more than casual as well, Sherlock stalking back towards him with two neckties in his hands. "Arms above your head. I never wear these anyway. Mummy keeps giving them to me as gifts."

"You know if it is really fun, seeing you wear a tie would be a huge turn on, " John said as he obeyed.

He snorted. "Please don't make a sexual association to neckties, John. Pick something else. Pick *anything* else, that's so mundane," Sherlock murmured, sliding his hands over John's wrists. "I'll buy cuffs."

"Well, there's the least mundane thing of all, which is you," John said and there it was, just a hint that Sherlock loved the acknowledgement, some or of praise. Perhaps people assumed he go it all the time.

It was a different curl of his mouth, something that touched his eyes. He wrapped the tie around John's wrists, looping one around his wrists, and then the other between his wrists and up to the headboard. "That's a much better idea."

He wondered in a family over overachievers if Sherlock had ever received praise. Probably not. The ties weren't that tight but there was resistance there. He couldn't pull his hands down without making it a struggle, and he didn't want to make it a struggle. Sherlock seemed delighted, surveying him with his eyes, his hands. He dragged fingers over his chest, circling a nipple with his fingertips.

"I'd blindfold you, but I like the way your eyes dart." Sherlock hummed to himself, repeating the gesture.

He could feel it reacting to the touch, the area contracting to incredibly tight nipples just at the light pressure there. It distracted him from the throbbing ache in his balls, very satisfactorily.

"Maybe another time," John said boldly unable to stop pulling a little because he wanted to do something.

Except be slowly teased. Sherlock's mouth twitched, and then he pinched one firmly between his thumb and forefinger, watching John's face while he knelt over him again. That was good, closer meant things were coming. Over, though, that was for teasing, he wanted Sherlock between his legs, he wanted him to do more than just tease...

It was a strange sensation. It sort of hurt but in an anticipatory way. He tried to lean up to kiss Sherlock hopefully. Maybe he could encourage him that way.

He wasn't sure what could work, except now he didn't have his hands to goad the other man along, and Sherlock seemed quite pleased with that as he dodged the kiss to suck the side of John's neck instead. "Hmn, hmn. What do you want, John?"

"Oh god Sherlock, I want you to fuck me," he pleaded. The kissing was sending shivers all through him. "I feel like I'm going to explode but can't."

"I didn't have to ask to know," Sherlock murmured, sliding down a fraction more to press his mouth against one erect nipple. There was a faint scrape of teeth. "But I do like hearing it."

His whole body shivered. It was like ice and fire. "I need more...please Sherlock, I...I need more." His body was jangling with the desire.

"Mm, you do have a lovely voice." No, no, he really didn't. he had a bog standard bloke on the street voice, and Sherlock was the one with the cultured easy tip to his voice, but he was also the one slowly kissing his way back down John's body, mouth lingering against his hipbone, body close enough finally that John had something he could rub his erection again, even if it was Sherlock's shoulder. "Just like this. Pull your legs up."

He did so, even though they were almost shaking with the strain. Rubbing against Sherlock was a wonderful torment, on that made him hitch his breath and then want to groan. "Please..I don't care how big you are, I just need... need you."

His benefactor was quiet, watching him, eyes assessing, and then he sat up, settled on his knees, one leg beneath John's ass. He pulled John's leg close, over his shoulder, and pressed distracting kisses against the side of his knee while he slicked himself. Finally!

Thank god he was flexible, and he wanted badly to clench and draw him in faster, harder because right now he was practically squirming. "I've been waiting all my life for this.." he said.

"Then let's make it worth the wait." He started to press in slowly -- first just the presence of a thick blunt head against his hole, and then pressure, a slow breaching with Sherlock's eyes focused on him with burning intensity.

"Oh...shit..." John squirmed. It wasn't entirely comfortable, despite the stretching. "Sherlock are you hung like a horse or something...oh god.." He had to squeeze shut his eyes almost holding his breath.

"I'm quite proportionate." And a little smug sounding as he kept pressing forward. Slow, not stopping or showing any signs of waiting for a moment, leaving a burning stretch that was only just starting to become something else.

He tugged with his hands but the restriction made a jolt of adrenalin shoot through him like lightening and he found himself wanting to clench down. "Sherlock..." His mouth was going dry and he wanted to arch or something, anything to do something.

"Go on, move how you want to. Please tell me they didn't instruct you to just lay there and take it and not *feel*," Sherlock sighed. He pressed another kiss to the inside of his knee, and *thrust* sharply, before rocking backwards more slowly.

"Ah, fuck!" John exhaled explosively, trying to focus his mind on what he was meant to do. He was meant to be thinking on his Benefactor and their pleasure but he was blinded by his own pleasure. He got a grip mentally and started to use his muscles inside, to encourage Sherlock along.

It was worth it to see Sherlock gasp, sliding fingers between then to unfasten Johns' cockring -- it's intense, but not so very intense just then that he was afraid he was going to come immediately. "That's almost a weapon."

He huffed a laugh. "If I could remember half of what they taught me right now, you wouldn't know what hit you, but... you are very distracting." He liked to see that gasp, to think he was making Sherlock feel like that.

"No rush. We have lots of time, we have..." Years, ages, and Sherlock had just put him on like he was an old familiar coat. He was fucking him like he'd done it all of his life. Dropped the cock ring, curled fingers against John's hip to shift him a little and thrust just so. "I have you."

"Yeah, you're mine," he murmured with a surge of a possessive feeling he wasn't expecting. His one constant in the world and all thoughts fears of rejection and not being what was want were melting away. 

He was wanted. Really wanted, needed, and that was important for John. Sherlock leaned in a little, not quite kissing him -- not quite wanting to break in John in half. Not being broken in half was important, even if he was starting to thrust harder. "Mmn."

"I want you," he murmured. "I have for so long. you're the only one in the world who means anything to me." It was a horrible stray thought to have while his benefactor was fucking him, and it skittered off when Sherlock gave another hard thrust that shuddered through him. There was finally a hint that he was staring to lose control. Finally.

He let himself go, climaxing with an incoherent shout that was half random noise and half a garbled Sherlock. He just let go completely, undone and shuddering in the ecstasy of coming.

He could feel Sherlock moving, a few more thrusts, and then he was done, pulling out. He didn't linger in John, just *on* John. Hands on his skin, sliding over his belly, a knee beside his thigh, leaning over him to un-tie his wrists. The intimacy was almost more devastating than the sex, the seeming ease and interest in John.

It meant it was more than just fun , good sex, and there was caring there. When his hands were free, he immediately wrapped them around Sherlock , not wanting to let go. "That was amazing...thank you."

Sherlock made a smug sort of snort, even as he eased down to lay on his side, fingers curling loosely against John's back as they settled atop the sheets, sweaty and sticky and hot. "I usually find sex unappealing and rather utilitarian. This... I'll need some time to process."

"Unappealing?" John practically snorted. "I thought I was going to explode. The way you were looking at me Sherlock, I can't even describe it." His bright eyes, dark with dilated pupils. "If you don't like sex, you're damn good at it."

His other hand settled between them, fingers near John's shoulders as he kept studying John's face. Eventually, he was going to run out of things to see, given the speed John guess Sherlock's mind moved at. "Good. I want to be good at it." A half second pause, then fingers at his back lingered down to John's hip, stroking him like he was a wayward alley cat. "You'll be amused to know the family brand is a lightning bolt. I'd like to put it on your hip, with whatever your modifier is. There are more discrete locations, of course, but I suspect anyone with a keen eye would see the standard behavioral tells long before they looked for a brand."

"That's a pretty manly symbol," John said smiling, taking the opportunity to kiss and nuzzle skin he hadn't been able to reach before. "The hip is fine, and I have no problems with people knowing I'm a companion."

"Occasionally, there are situations where that is the last thing you want known. Unfortunately, there are still always... Suggestions." Like Dr. Jim. Like Seb probably had done.

"I know. It's been happening for years," John shrugged a little. "They see an absurdly young doctor and that's a big assumption made right there."

"You won't always be acting as a doctor in the warzone, John." Sherlock shifted his fingers against John's shoulder, sliding them behind his neck. "Still, I have the luxury of having it be publicly known that you're my companion."

"Mmm, do I get to take your name?" John said wrapping himself around Sherlock instinctively.

"Of course, don't be daft. Whose name would I give you?" Sherlock seemed comfortable being wrapped up, and didn't fight it at all.

"Some Benefactors don't like it...uh, usually ones with wives though," John replied. "The wife doesn't like the idea and you take another name from the family line."

"Mycroft's providing the heir so I don't have to bother. I gave up drugs. That was the deal." He closed his eyes, mouth lingering against John's hair as they settled on. "No plans of marrying, either."

"Never say never," John said. "It's okay, Sherlock. I'm never going to leave you." He recognized the contentment on Sherlock's face as something very atypical for his Benefactor. "You weren't expecting it to be like this were you?"

"I was prepared for every eventuality, but it was most likely that you would 'fit' appropriately." But he still hadn't answered John's question. He didn't expect his own reaction.

"But you don't usually like sex, but you liked this," John said, smiling a little.

"I like *you*. Weren't you paying attention when I explained it earlier?" He sounded as if he was sure John had, but he also wasn't going to repeat it.

"Yes, and I am also listening to the way you are avoiding answering the question," he said with a faint smile. "That's okay."

"Thank you for your permission to dodge the question." Sherlock's arm tightened fractionally, and he stretched one leg comfortably against John's. He could lie there and laze for a while before either of them needed to shower again.

"Thank you for taking my virginity in such a spectacular way," John replied and then nearly laughed at what he had just said.

Sherlock snorted, fingertips lingering at the nape of John's neck. "It seemed obvious when I decided it. Better than to make it underwhelming... Get a little sleep. We'll see how many other ways we can try tonight, and mark tomorrow off as 'recovery'. And your presentation."

John grinned. "Sounds like a plan. You have the best plans." Sex all night was exactly what he could wish for right now, the best of distractions.

It wasn't a perfect coming home, but it was close.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul had told him a 'story' once, about a soldier who'd 'turned', scare quotes and all. There were always so many wars going on, so many sides tangled up in it all. Lots of good men ended up captured, held captive, interrogated, drained and thrown aside. Paul was probably being taken apart mentally just then, if he was still alive. Seb wondered how long he'd hold out before he told all of Mycroft's secrets, before whoever it was that held Paul started to use them against Mycroft. Without anyone there to protect Mycroft.

"John! Keep up!"

Sherlock stopped a few feet ahead of him, glancing over his shoulder at John like he was a heeled dog. It was a miracle that Sherlock had grabbed his own rucksack and gear bag, probably out of habit or else John would've been carrying that as well. It was their third transfer, the last one -- out to a distant forward operating base that was large enough to support a healthy intelligence cell. There was always a need for medical staff, and John was looking forward to throwing his stuff down in the private room they were going to get -- privacy care of plywood, Sherlock had warned, noting that it would be decent CDX rather than cheaper -- before meeting the rest of the medical staff.

The last two weeks had been a whirlwind of life changing things. His presentation, where he didn't disgrace himself in front of a crowd of Benefactors and gritted his teeth at the sting of the brand. He'd chosen the caduceus to go with the lightning bolt and it scabbed over swiftly and just twinged now at all the roaming around he was doing on rough terrain. 

He was still covering it carefully. It was one of those things where he knew absolutely what was best to do for the healing of it, more than Sherlock. John gave it a couple of days to heal at the edges, to draw in tighter, and then he'd sat down with peroxide and tweezers and meticulously picked the scab off so it would scar up with a more defined edge. Sherlock had called it interesting, having watched from the bathroom door, and seemed delighted that he had a companion *capable* of thinking quite so out of the box.

Sherlock led the way away from the helicopter, waving to an NCO who was coming towards them.

"Good to see you sirs," the NCO half bellowed over the noise of the helicopter taking off. It was hot and gritty almost from the word go. "I'll show you your billet."

"How brain damaged is the staff in the intelligence cell?" Sherlock asked casually as John caught up and they started moving.

The NCO grinned. "About standard. They haven't started drooling yet sir," he said dryly. "Over here sir… Standard double billet."

The bed looked like two tiny twin beds that had been jammed together, with the mattresses thrown the other way across the frames. There was maybe two feet of space between the bed and the door, and a foot locker at the end of the bed. There was one bare light bulb from the ceiling. Sherlock nodded, surveying the walls. "Excellent. I believe John is looking forward to meeting the rest of the medical staff. I'll unpack and find my men on my own."

"Pretty much standard layout sir," the NCO said. "I'll leave you to unpack.”

Sherlock gave a put-upon sounding sigh. "Take Captain Holmes to the medical section, do you understand? This is his first deployment. I don't believe he's yet memorized our horrendous idea of a layout yet."

"Yes sir," the NCO replied and John quirked a smile at Sherlock and headed out after the other man.

"What's it been like out here?" he asked as they headed into the heart of the base.

"Rough. There's a couple of smaller bases who we provide medical support to, and you'll be going out there occasionally. I hope you enjoy hot weather." John dropped his eyes, caught the man's nametape. Wilks.

"Spend all the time in England complaining about the rain. Got a feeling I'll be looking forward to it again," John commented easily.

"It snows up here all winter," Sgt Wilkes murmured, looking sideways at him. "This is the fighting season. Things slow down a little during harvests and when it gets bitterly cold."

"Right. How cold does it get then?" John asked, mentally cataloguing what he might see in terms of treatment and cases.

"-7 degrees is considered balmy, occasionally. But we're not there yet." The man smiled at him as he led him back outside, and across open ground that was pitted with fortification points.

"Right," John nodded. "I'm kinda new to all this. Anything I need to know?"

"Put your helmet on if you hear mortars incoming. Learn to duck?" The man was smirking a little.

"Yeah, not so helpful," John replied with a grin. "I figured that one on my own."

"Ah, then you are bright, Captain Holmes. You'll be happy to know that your predecessor left on rotation back home, not due to death or injury. We've had a good run with doctors in this unit."

"Do they go out in the field much?" he asked. He'd had the training but it was different from the reality he knew that.

"Yes, sometimes. We do Medical work for some of the villages. It's a big to-do, but we won't be doing it again for a few weeks." He stopped to haul a door open. "We have one other doctor out here. I think you'll like her."

"What’s her name?" John asked, so he wouldn't be caught wrong footed.

"Dr. Frasier." He pushed at the door, smirking a little. "And here we are, doc, we've got a new doc for you. Can I call him baby doc, or...?"

"No, not unless you want a needle jabbed somewhere painful," the woman said. “Hi, I'm Janet Frasier and I am incredibly glad to see you."

"Thanks," John said, taking stock. "It's good to be here."

Sgt Wilkes waved slightly, already trying to slip out the door. "Can you find your way back to the Major?"

He nodded. "Thanks Sergeant, I can," he replied. "I won't be going anywhere for some time."

Dr. Frasier waited until he was gone before turning an appraising eye at him. "I read your file. I'm glad to have you on."

"Thanks. It'll be my first posting as an army doctor. Do you get much surgery?" John asked.

"Regularly. We do a great deal of stabilization, traumatic concussive injuries. Amputations when necessary, but I prefer to fly them on to the continent for that. Depending on the flight, you may ride along to a transfer point and then have to come back to keep them stable."

"Right. Is it just us as the surgeons then?" John asked looking around the place. It wasn't particularly roomy.

"And there's a few medics as well, and one nurse. I trust the medics with my life, more than the EMTs back home." And she seemed to be telling him he should, as well.

"Right, got it." He nodded. "So, I assume you'll be assigning me duties?"

"We're not large enough to warrant a nightshift, but we're also both always on call," she warned.

"Makes sense," he agreed. "There was some talk of going out with groups?"

"Yes. Think of it as general practice work. Lots of times you'll be the only doctor they've ever seen. We diagnose, immunize, and treat what we can."

He smiled at that. "Sounds good, I can handle that. I've got extensive A&E experience and was lucky enough to have surgical practice."

"I know. I met your mentor on my last tour. I liked him, when I did run into him." She looked sideways at him, and the added as an afterthought, "we changed a lot of our safety procedures after he was snatched."

"Jim was snatched?" John nearly startled. "I didn't know...what happened? Have they recovered him? Is he even…"

Alive.

She shrugged. "MIA. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you."

He nodded slowly. He was starting to wonder if knowing him was the kiss of death. "Thank you for telling me.” Maybe Sherlock could pick something up if he tipped him off."

It was something for him to consider as he tilted his head and watched her sad expression. "MEDCAPs are now heavily staffed. He went out with a unit to see about a girl with a broken back. He was going to make sure she was stabilized before we moved her. He was snatched."

"He could still be out there somewhere though,” he asked. "Damn..." He'd be alive, if he was an ex-companion he'd know how to adapt.”

"He could be. We always keep an eye out for MIAs, Captain Holmes. We have recovery specialists looking for all of them." In every war, he knew that. He knew that, but it didn't seem enough.

She stepped back. "Let me show you what's in what drawers...

He paid attention as she showed him around, memorizing the places of equipment and protocols easily enough, getting to know her as well. She was tired, but dedicated and careful. He could work with her without a problem, which was important in a place like this. He managed to get her to loosen up a little and tell him stories of some of the funny shit she had seen and that was a good icebreaker. Then he got introduced to a few others. Things started to relax, slowly. He figured he'd settle in there just fine, eventually.

* * *

Paul had told him a 'story' once, about a soldier who'd 'turned', scare quotes and all. There were always so many wars going on, so many sides tangled up in it all. Lots of good men ended up captured, held captive, interrogated, drained and thrown aside. Paul was probably being taken apart mentally just then, if he was still alive. Seb wondered how long he'd hold out before he told all of Mycroft's secrets, before whoever it was that held Paul started to use them against Mycroft. Without anyone there to protect Mycroft.

The soldier who'd 'turned' had gone through stages -- faking it, rage and swallowed disgust, getting along to get along, and then quiet numbness, before he'd finally gotten his job done and had gotten home.

He'd burned the whole lot of them in his wake, walked away with everything they'd had, but he'd left pieces of himself behind, and that was the trade-off. It was a usual Paul story, a friend of a friend who was really Paul, story, and it made him wonder if it was the same story Mycroft was always so sad about and never discussed. If Paul had told him the story because he knew what Sebastian was supposed to be doing some day.

The problem of that story as an object lesson was that Seb had passed through quiet numbness. It was starting to settle into mundane, and easy, and it was harder to hold onto what he was supposed to do.

There, there was no Paul to find. Paul was dead and gone and he couldn't bring him back for Mycroft, he couldn't do that because there was no Paul he could get his hands onto, though he was sure that this.

This was it, this was the old target organization now that he'd gotten his teeth into it, now that he'd seen the deeper extent of operations and who some of their, Jim's, touch-points were. Jim had been playing cat and mouse with Mycroft long enough to know who he was, and Mycroft didn't have a clue who or what Jim was, except enough hints of his personality to throw Seb at him.

He'd accidentally picked up his old mission, and wasn't finding Paul, and Mycroft had done a fucking number with him, hadn't he, because Jim was *so* pleased with him. He was a perfect fill for the man, in a way he hadn't ever felt like at Mycroft's side. He missed the quiet, he missed intimacy, even just what it felt like to crawl into bed beside Mycroft and drape himself over the man. Lingering and a little over-warm and sleepy, like heated honey. The sex had been like that, too, when it had happened. Paul, Paul had. Paul had been so alive and so sharp, and he'd always had a stupid immediate reaction to him, rising lust when his brain had all the cues that it was all right then and there because there were so many times when it was unbelievably inappropriate. He missed that, but it was a distant, numb thing, and he was focusing on day to day to day. It wasn't even particularly hard work -- there was just a lot for him to catch up on, to learn, to memorize. A lot of new information that he'd crammed into his head, but that was all. It wasn't as if he hadn't killed before, as if he hadn't taken extreme, morally grey stances before. And these people were criminals, mostly. Fuck them, there was no guarantee he wouldn't have killed the same people if the other him had've gotten to them first.

Everything smelled like copper and piss, though.

He was in a room with a CCTV feed from the dingy space where Seb was standing, a small piece in his ear full of approving murmurs and suggestions and responses to every line of his questioning. Jim didn't get his hands dirty. Jim stayed out of it -- good business sense --and now he had an enforcer, someone who understood what he was doing with a knife enough to use it to behead something. The guy hadn't even had anything useful, and Seb's fingers were sticky, mucked up with blood, his clothes, his hair, and his arms. "Get him out of here, and bring the next one in," he murmured to the heavy -- Steven, Steven whose personality had been ill-disposed for housework and being pent up -- and turned to the dingy tap in the corner. There was just one left from that facility, and then they'd liquidate it, clean it out, make it look like nothing had ever happened there. They'd gotten a government agent, and they wanted him to run home to mommy and daddy with tears and horror in his eyes.

The government agent was the last they were letting him interrogate, and at least that lucky fucker was going to make it out alive. He figured the blood on the floor, the head in the corner would sort of do it all for the guy. He ran his hands under the tap, smudged thick clots off of his fingers, leaned in to drink from the tap. "That wasn't even interesting, sir." He hardly had to say it at all, because Jim had him miked carefully, could probably hear him swallow water. "What the fuck am I doing here?" Going past numb. Going past, going past Paul's story. There was still so much to do, and he could leave any time. Any time, go back to Mycroft, call it off. Give him everything he knew, burn Moriarty, but it felt premature. There was a lot he was still missing, too.

He fished a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket, wanting to get the smell of blood out of his nose.

And he didn't have Paul to bring him, so why even fucking bother?

He thought he was numb to everything, deadened, but he wasn't ready to see who the agent was. Cee, all pissy attitude and struggling spit and fire until she was literally dragged in and looked up at him. The colour drained from her face and he probably looked like some apparition from the grave, covered in blood and gore, a dead man walking.

"No...No, this is beyond sick..." Cee's eyes were already wild even as she struggled.

"Hey. It's been a while, hasn't it?" He tilted his head a little, inhaling slowly through his cigarette before taking a back a step to pick up the homing knife he'd been using. "Whatever did you get yourself into, Cee?"

"You're dead..." she said, even as Steven pushed her down into a chair. "I went to your funeral...what the hell is this? You RAN AWAY? After Paul?!"

"They wrote Paul off. They hold a funeral for him, as well?" He took a casual stance, lowering his cigarette as he watched her. He nodded to Steve, and the man started to strap her down to the bloody chair.

"You fucking bastard," she screamed at him. "You fucking bastard, you run away and join the sort of shits who killed him in the first place. I knew him longer than you, he pulled me out of the goddamn gutter and you piss on his memory by becoming some worthless butcher getting his hands dirty because someone scooped you off of the streets doesn't want to get messy himself." Cee was incoherent with rage and fear.

The edge of his mouth twisted, and he tossed the knife boredly. "Did baiting me *ever* work?" The string of expletives that came out of her mouth would have put Will to shame.

"You're a murderer Seb, you were the best of us and now you're a common murderer. Go on then, kill me. Add another notch to whatever the hell you use to keep score."

He pulled a slow sideways smirk, and put his cigarette out on the floor. "Nah, I want you to go screaming home to mother, Cee. I know what you were doing. *We* didn't appreciate it."

"Fuck you," she said, blanching as she took in the head on the floor. He knew she knew how he'd done it, she'd been there for that particular lesson and how long it took. He could tell she thought he had gone batshit insane.

And hell. Why not roll with it? But nothing obvious. Jim had gone quiet in his ear-piece, watching he was sure. This was damn good theatre for Jim, Seb could tell. He crouched down in front of her instead, just a little under eye level, balance careful. "I'm curious what you're thinking. How you're explaining all of this to yourself. One minute, you were deep undercover for Mr. Holmes with a criminal ring. Next minute, some *other* group rolled them up, and there's pretty boy in the corner there. He was boring. Are you gunna be *boring*, Cee?"

"I'm not stupid Seb," she protested but it sounded weak, unsettled. "Fuck, you busted me, I got that. Can't fake it out not with you. But I've been running without a handler for a while. I don't know what's been going on back there.

"I don't believe you." He pressed two knuckles against his mouth, watching her face. "Who's your handler? Who gave you this mission?"

"Oh I was sent into Marcello's gang alright, following out their terrorist contacts in Iraq," she said watching his face with wide dark eyes. "Why the hell you asking me what you know? You know who sent me, but I didn't have a handler, not this time in."

"Who was your contact back home? Who were you feeding?" He reached for one of her hands, already tied down nicely at the wrist, and lifted the knife in a show. Didn't do anything, just took an easy hold of her fingers. Didn't have to do anything. "C'mon, what were they trying to get out of this? We never ran fishing expeditions."

Cee valued her fingers as much as anything else - skillful lock-picker, dexterity needed. She tried to clench them away from him in fear. "What the hell are you doing? Fuck..."

He kept a hold of her index finger, and lifted an eyebrow at her, tilting his head forward in an expression she'd recognise well. "What does it look like I'm doing, Cee? I'm just going to take the tips off of your fingers. Loosen the joints up a little if you're still not talking. I'd rather you talk, though. I had to work through lunch to empty out that cell you were sharing with the boys, and now you're the last thing between me and a shower, a couple of good glasses of wine and maybe a steak."

She was drawing back away from him. "Holy fuck, you're really going to do this..." It was a faint amazement. "Look, Seb. I’m not lying. Mycroft put me in there... and I guess I was reported through whoever the hell is monitoring right now. He's become a coldhearted bastard recently, sending us all in after pretty thin leads. Paul wouldn't have stood for it, wouldn't have let him but... He was after the Weapons Ark okay? He heard rumours about it that someone had uncovered it."

"And what did he tell you to look for? C'mon, give me the up to date brief that he gave you before patting you on the head and sending you out like a good schoolchild." Biological weapon stash. Rumoured Axis experimentation site, the sort that'd make what the Japanese did in biological weapons look tame. He pressed the tip of the boning knife against her finger -- not enough to take it off, just to remind her.

She actually nearly hyperventilated at the pressure. "That... that a faction group that had dealt with Marcello had sent a coded message asking for contacts to appraise a find made in their territory. I was meant to identify the faction group and we only had a first name of Hamil. Do you know how many fucking Hamils there are? "

"More of them than were there faction groups that Marcello ever dealt with. A cross-section of the two must've given you an answer pretty quickly," Seb pointed out dully, watching her from under half closed eyes. "What'd you find? You're getting boring."

"Fine...” she was staring at him. "The Warriors of the Righteous Path. Typical nutjobs not far from the Iran border. Tripped over something that should have been mothballed."

He left a shallow cut against the soft pad of one finger-tip -- not ruinous, but a reminder. It'd heal. "Someone's looking that up right now. And if you lied to me..."

Jim would whisper orders in his ear. And he'd fucking do it.

"I'm no fucking hero, you know that," Cee replied. "I started out on the con and at this rate I'll end up back there." She grimaced a little.

He tilted his head a little. Anything -- anything? But nothing. Nothing from Jim. It was fucking weird. "Nah. You haven't got it in you. I'm certainly not interested in having you on." He took the fingertip off anyway -- just enough that it'd be a fucking pain healing. Enough for her to guess, too, that he planned to let her live.

She shrieked enough for it to be blue murder though - Cee had never been that tough about pain, though she kept fit. "That's all I know, where I got to until you rolled in."

"Slow," Seb tsked, flicking her fingertip away. "Shame, I'd hoped to work you over more."

"Yeah well...” Cee managed after a moment of hysterical gasping. "I wanna see as little of you as possible. I used to like you... what the fuck happened to you? Do Companions become psychotic or something when they lose their Benefactors?"

He could hear Jim chuckle a little in his ear, the fact he had fooled them all.

"Yeah. Yeah, when you lose your reason for sticking around..." Seb pressed the knife into the webbing of her thumb. "And just to clarify, I was Holmes'."

"Mycroft?" She laughed, wheezing. "Now I know you're fucking insane. Mycroft with a sex-pet? Jesus fuck."

"Oh, I'm a fucking sex pet now?" He let his temper spike, and he cut that soft skin beside her thumb. "Yeah, didn't work so well."

She yelped again. "Stop, stop, please Seb...stop!"

~Isn't it pretty when they beg?~ Jim murmured in his ear.

He huffed a laugh, and tipped his head. "Jesus, yes. Say that again, I don't think the tone was right."

"Please, Seb..." She had tears in her eyes as he loomed closer, even more threatening as he towered over her. "Please... please stop... stop..."

It felt good. It felt fucking fantastic, but he remembered the message he was supposed to be sending. He panted through the urge, and smacked the palm of his hand hard against her nose.

It broke, he felt it snap and gushed blood, even as her head snapped back.

~Good~ Jim approved in a purring tone.

She was half howling, half sobbing, and he stepped back with a smile. "Steve, drug her, ditch her back in the docklands."

"Right boss," the man replied, setting to work methodically to drag her away. He felt...empty. Hollow somehow.

He flung the knife at the wall, and turned his attention towards the CCTV. "That was unsatisfying."

~Much as I would like to indulge your desire for the kill,~ Jim murmured. ~We did have a purpose to that one. And all the better they know what they discarded.~

"Yeah." He tilted his head a little, as if he could see Jim past it. "After we tear the wiring out and stitch it, can I come home?" He'd been out for two weeks and he needed... Something.

~Oh believe me, I think you deserve a reward~ Jim promised. ~What do you want Seb, my Seb?~

What did he want? Was that where he gave the wrong answer, and just ended up blown away? "I want to be with you. Is all."

There was a laugh. ~Then come home to me, a companions companion...~ The Irish lilt was almost unbearably sexy. ~I've been waiting for you."

"After I've made this place burn. See you soon, sir." He waved to the camera, and raised his gun to shoot the camera. Because he could. Because he was tired and he had something to look forward to after he finished off the facility. He'd see it decimated, and then leave.

He was remarkably proficient at it now, leaving the message, remembering the details to leave it clean. But there was a hollow hunger in him that wound him up and wound him up until he could smash the nose in of one of his closest friends and not even blink. 

Seb took himself home after that, showered first, changed and headed to see Jim. He closed his eyes, nerves thrumming as he opened the door. It was open to him, so he knew to not waste time knocking.

"Sebastian." Jim was sitting in his very designer suite. "Have you eaten? Look at you wearing yourself thin for me." Jim had a wicked little half quirk to his mouth as he approached him.

Sprawled across a comfortable leather sofa. Seb ran a hand back through his hair, and shut the door. "I think I need food a little less than uh..." Contact. He was nearly dying for it after so many months. "You ever wonder if they do some kind of brain surgery on companions."

"Years of brainwashing. It takes an uncommon mind to break free of it," Jim answered beckoning him over. "You look like you want more than just a steak dinner."

"I sometimes wonder if it would be worth it to break free. It feels good when you go with it." He walked over, and knelt. Voluntarily. He'd never picked who he knelt for. Paul had been picked for him. Mycroft had been the ruling factor of his life.

Jim laughed a little. "Look at you… is this what you really want Seb?" His hand rested gently on his head and caressed down his neck. "Because I don't share and I am insanely possessive...I'll want all of you, and I'll take it..."

He exhaled in a huff, and leaned into the caress of those fingers. "That's more of a promise than a threat."

"What a wonderful treasure you are," Jim said. "Up, Seb, here with me. You'll need your strength."

He knelt up, and didn't hesitate as he put a knee on the cushion, moving into Jim comfortably. "Just tell me what you want."

"Oh I will. Lie out, head in my lap and close your eyes," he said. 

He was bigger than Jim, and the sofa was small. It was easy to fall into, shifting smoothly to do just that. Jim smelled of quality cologne, jasmine and something amber, faint musk as he laid his head on Jim's lap. He was warm and comfortable, and he knew Jim well enough that it didn't feel strange. Jim was frightening and mercurial, honed and falling apart at the same time, and so. So fucking brilliant it was breathtaking in those moments where Seb could see the patterns at some small lower level, enough to recognise there was more and it all went deeper than what he could pick up. 

Closing his eyes to the feeling of fingers against his hair was easy, fingers curling behind one ear. It was such a simple touch, but it was unravelling him. He'd put a lot of mental energy into sectioning off intimacy with Paul and Mycroft as a reward, as a, as something that came after work, after everything was all safe and well. Fuck, he'd built *that* trigger into himself, after he'd left the center.

Jim just seemed to know how to do this to him, reading him in a brilliant way. "How did the Iceman reward you Seb?" Moriarty asked even as he stroked over his skin in gentle caresses. "Could he give you any scrap of affection?"

He shook his head, starting to relax slowly. Seb still choked a quiet laugh as he tried to come up with a response. "That was Paul. Sometimes." It had partially been an academic issue for Paul as well.  
"Did they never explore your wants and needs or was that too much trouble?" Jim said scathingly. "The waste...look at you, so beautiful and responsive when I touch you and they ignored that. No wonder you ran from them." The stroking never stopped. "Do you even know what you like Seb?"

"At what point is that ever part of the discussion?" It had always felt good, and he could find enjoyment in just about anything. And he wasn't stupid enough to think Jim was offering anything altruistically.  
"I don't just want rehearsed moans," Jim said. "I want to you break for me, break with the sheer intensity of desire. You don't even know that can happen. You're a blank canvas for me.”

He licked his bottom lip, and had to work to keep his eyes closed. It was easy to shift an arm, though, curling it around Jim's waist comfortably. Turning the idea around in his head was pretty appealing, enough to stir the start of interest in his groin. "Paul tried that, but he never really..." Pushed it, went as far as he could've. "Sealed the deal."

"Oh, I think we can manage better than that," Jim answered. "I don't do anything by halves. I think I can fill you with something so wild and intense you'll want to burst." He could hear the smirk in Jim's voice at that.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, and instead of parrying with Jim just then, he focused on Jim's familiar smell, the fingers in his hair, the closeness. Seb exhaled, didn't move to sit up yet. "Please."

"Look at you, eager like a puppy," Jim teased. "Have a treat to keep up your strength." A morsel of something rather delicious was slipped past his lips. "I don't want you passing out on me."

Meat, decent steak. It just made him wonder where it had come from, because he hadn't seen it walking in. Still, the grain was right, and the taste was right. So was the wet linger of Jim's fingers, and he went with instinct, eyes half opening as he tried to suck Jim's fingers.

"Mm, you know what would be nice?" Jim mused aloud. "You, stripped naked, tied up lying here while I fed you dinner. Possibly with a vibrator in your ass. "

Hmn, getting there, yeah. Seb exhaled against Jim's fingers, turned his head a little to try to read Jim's expression. "What do you get out of that?"

"Well, a little afterwards, I intend to flip you over and get you to suck me off and then probably fuck you so hard you'll see stars," Jim replied cheerfully.

He groaned a little, and turned his head, twisting carefully to press his mouth against the fabric of Jim's suit. Dry, just then, closed mouth because Jim was hysterically particular about his suits and Seb was quick to pick up on watching the man check his cuffs for muck when it wasn't whole-heartedly ruinous. "I think you can do better than that."

"Oh definitely, but you are practically a virgin Seb," Jim tsked a little. "Your delicate sensibilities might not cope with what I really want to do."

"I think I got up to more my first week home," Seb half-mumbled against Jim's crotch, his erection. Weird, bent backwards, probably to not break the line of his suit. Those damn suits. He moved his free hand to Jim's zipper, the buttons, waiting to get told no.

"I thought you said you did nothing much..." Jim replied. "Do you really want me to... get heavy handed with you Seb?"

"Mycroft did nothing much. *Paul* was another story," Seb said, tilting a look up at Jim as his fingers lingered and then undid one pants button, before moving to the second one.

"Paul, Paul the infamous Paul... what did he do?" Jim made no move to stop him.

"He was a good rough fuck. But he did exactly what Mycroft told him to. It..." Seb tilted his head down, got that button, started on the zipper. Hell, Jim could tell when a person was lying and when it was true, and he might as well carry on true. "I was a perfect proxy for them. I still miss the bastard, but he's, he's ash in the wind."

"You like it rough," Jim said smirking again. "Well, still not ripe for a trip to my personal interrogation chamber but promising. A bit of punishment."

"Sounds like a good reward." Seb watched that smirk, moved his fingers slowly to try to get Jim's dick molded upright and touchable.

"How utterly delightful," Jim laughed a little. "Give me one of your dirty fantasies Seb and I'll give you one of mine."

Dirty fantasies. "Fuck, I don't think I've bothered in years." He finally got his fingers wrapped around Jim, watching for a reaction as he stroked his dick, fingers of his other hand splayed against Jim's back. "Mycroft in the shower, pinned up against the tiles and fighting me off. Just to try to break some kind of reaction out of him. Mmm, always wanted to see what my limits actually were, not when Paul got tired or got off and stopped." That moment when he thought he could see over the edge and always wondered what was on the other side.

Jim snorted. "Barely grubby fantasies," he scorned. "Sometimes when I look at you I think, yeah, I want to do more than just sex. I want to overpower you, fucking practically rape you because I want you so much I don't care what you want. No fucking safe words or even consent, just you helpless to stop me and me doing whatever the hell I want... and maybe to start with fucking is enough, but then it won't be. Because here I have a beautiful lean body, and there are so many wonderful things I could do with it."

"Christ." He leaned up on his arm, watching Jim's animated face, because fuck, he could rise to that challenge. He could get into that. "And what makes you think I'd be helpless?"

"Well because I would over power you of course," Jim replied complacently. "Because brawn can never out match brain. It's inevitable. There you'd be freshly fucked and there I would be with a toy to play with. I'm good at improvising."

He shifted quickly, up onto his knees, a hand pressed hard in the middle of Jim's chest. "Let's test this."

"Are you threatening me?" Jim said, his eyes bright and almost excited. "You want to test me? Because you won't win, you'll never win."

"So?" He didn't win *now*, so why not try it? He was taller and bigger than Jim -- there were probably species of squirrel that were larger than Jim some days, but that depended on the man's posture at any given moment -- so he grabbed at one of Jim's wrists, still eye to eye with him. 

"Tsk, tsk.” Jim stared into his eyes and flicked a glance down. He caught a brief glimpse of metal on his wrist before Jim took advantage of that split second and spilled him on the floor somehow getting his hands behind him and the other cuff in place. "You were saying?"

Seb twisted, got himself at least seated, and started to carefully work at getting at least one wrist free while he got to his feet. The fact that he'd jarred hard into the floor was something he'd rolled with, didn't mind at all. "I think you need to tweak your definition of helpless, Jim."

"Oh really?" Jim very casually got up and then literally yanked the rug out from under his feet.

It sent him sprawling, and he nearly cracked his head on the expensive coffee table that was positioned decoratively to one side. Still, he struggled up again gamely. "Positional disadvantage. Still not helpless."

Jim was taking off his belt and came up behind him putting his knee sharply in his back and hog-tying him with the belt around his ankles. "I like it when you struggle.” 

He exhaled in a laugh. "Point proven. Fuck." He flexed hard, enough to jerk the belt. Seb was sure he could break it, and why not try?

"Normally I have some rope handy, I'm terribly under dressed today," he said and sat on Seb's back, and stripped off his belt. This went around his knees. "Interesting fact, very difficult to break it when tied at both points."

He started to relax, Jim an almost comfortable weight on his back as he just breathed. At least, he was for the moment. "I could get out of this, if I had to." He was just a little reluctant to break his own wrist to prove a point in a sex game. It wasn't actually life or death.

"If you broke your wrist maybe," Jim mused. "That would be a shame. Mm. " He yanked down Seb's pants.

Or was it yanked up, given that his legs were twisted like that? He gave another jerk, twisting as Jim got them down to his knees and the belt he'd strapped across them. "You're going to have to be creative," Seb muttered, wondering if shifting onto his side would make things better or worse.

"I always am," Jim replied, shifting to straddle him. He leaned down and bit at the back of his neck and shoulder.

Seb exhaled in a shaky huff, relaxing, face against the cool floor. His shoulders were going to be fucked in the morning. "Should I be afraid of that, or excited?"

"Demanding.” he said. "Are you really in a position to demand anything?" He was doing something back there.

"I don't know. I can't see what you're doing... I might be." He tried to look over his shoulder.

There was the feeling of fingers prising his ass apart. "Fuck. Pert muscular ass. I like it."

It was awkward, hog-tied like that. His thighs were stuck together, too, at the knees with the second belt, so he was curious with just what Jim thought he was going to get up to.

He wasn't sure what Jim thought he was doing, aside from poking around a little at his ass. And then he heard the soft smooth sound of metal drawn across leather and then the coldness of a blade against his skin. "One way to stop you running away when I fuck you," Jim said. 

He flexed his arms carefully, and settled, laid his cheek against the floor. "I thought that was what the ropes were doing?" The problem of it was that he was as hard as a rock.

"Yeah well, can't split you open with your knees tied.” He could however trail the knife over his back and down the crack of his ass.

Just a sharp, faint touch. Just a suggestion of a touch, and knowing what it was made it worse than the mere feeling. He blinked, eyes mostly on the tile floor, and feeling it. "Can't say it's a bad solution."

He was yanked on one side and the knife tickle nicked over his thigh and down to his now exposed cock. "Oh look.” Jim said in a voice that was delighted. "It likes metal... aww..."

Laying on his side like that was almost a relief, and Seb inhaled, tilting his head down to look at Jim, Jim's expression, fuck the knife pressed faintly at the base of his cock. He focused on not breathing too hard just then. "Or it likes being really scared."

"Really?" There was a little more pressure and then Jim was gripping the shaft of his cock hard and the knife was pressed hard against delicate skin as if he was preparing to saw it off.

He wondered, distantly, when exactly he'd stopped giving a fuck. How many months it took to stop feeling emotion, to stop fucking caring and just feeling sensation? "Uhm." If Jim sawed it off, he sawed it off. It wasn't as if he was in a position to fight him off.

Jim laughed in his ear. "Crude, I have so many ways to torture with that, it would be a shame to lose it so soon." He moved his hand up, to scrape a little stubble from Seb's cheek with the knife. "Oops."

It pulled a vaguely nervous laugh out of him, as he felt the roughness, the blade's edge against his skin. It went right to his groin, and stuck there, made his dick twitch.

Then suddenly it became urgent and rough. Jim's hands seemed to be all over him, tugging him up, bending him over the couch, slipping the belt from around his knees. And the knife there, until his own belt was pulled roughly into his mouth to gag him.

It was a relief, too, when his ankles were released from his arms and he could at least support his own fucking weight and bite on the belt, groaning against it as Jim pressed the knife against the back of his neck. He could feel the fabric of Jim's shirt against his fingers, and knotted them in it, held on tight and *clutched*.

Paul had sometimes been rough, but not like this. Jim pushed into him with gleeful abandon and it fucking hurt, right up to the point where something shifted and the burn went from something painful to something more than pleasurable. It was consuming because there was nothing he could do, nothing that would stop it and it was completely uninhibited.

He was red-faced and halfway to crying, because it was really amazingly painful, fucking split in half with none of the really sexy slow prep to make it easier, and it felt shamefully good. His dick was leaking good, shaking, pulling at Jim's shirt harder struggling as he was mushed down into the sofa cushions, face crushed up against the back. It *hurt*, enough to distract him from the slow pressure of a knife against his back, the faint cat-scratch nicks, and he kept moving into it, or away from it. He wasn't sure, and it didn't matter.

Jim wasn't using a condom, he knew that and he was just thrusting impossibly hard and fast, like a relentless goddamn machine and even went he felt and heard Jim's panting groans as he sped up towards his own climax, the reach around didn't feel like someone getting him off, it felt like someone forcing his orgasm to come now, like it or not, out of his control.

No choice, nothing to do but go with it, having it yanked out of him by fingers that knew what they were doing, that left him groaning against the belt between his teeth, the taste of leather and wear in his mouth as he came against pain and his hands trapped behind his back.

"That was fun," Jim murmured in his ear. The remnants of his shirt were cut off and used to wipe him off, and the belt around his ankle removed and slipped around his neck. "My Seb on a leash..." he murmured. He had somehow improvised a tether from strips of material. The cuffs were undone, his pants pulled right off until he was naked. "Up here on the couch with me.”

He gave a shaky exhale, and crawled up beside Jim. It was an agony to move, and he couldn't quite stop shaking when he breathed against the belt gag.

"Good boy," Jim sprawled out, turning on the TV and drawing Seb in close against him, taking out the leather belt from his mouth. "Good boy." His hand stroked him absently as if he was a pet cat.

"You planned that, didn't you?" He slouched, jaw tight and still shaking as he leaned into Jim. He felt boneless.

"I could say I walk around with handcuffs in my pocket on the off chance," Jim replied soothing him and hooking a leg over his. Jim burned heat like a furnace, he could feel it radiating off of him like a miniature sun.

"Nah. Pants too tight." He did feel better, whether it was the stripped bare feeling of the rawness of his skin and the heatedly lingering pain. He leaned a cheek against Jim. "Fuck."

"Mmmhm. I enjoyed it. Your body seemed to," Jim replied, playing with his improvised collar and scratching through his hair.

He felt like he'd swallowed broken glass, but he couldn't bring himself to mind it. He turned his head instead, and tried to press his mouth against Jim's wrist. "That. Was..."

"Something you never knew you needed," Jim replied, allowing him to kiss him. "I know. It will become easier... and harder."

"I feel shattered." It wasn't bad, and the pain was low, easy. Settled. He wasn't going to do anything just then, and the news was a low drone in his ear.

"Well, you've had a busy day," Jim said understandingly. "Of course you are tired, and you need to unwind. It's a good way to unwind."

Apparently, because he couldn't manage to hold onto a single thought except that he was drained and sore and could finally, sort of, relax. He watched the ticker at the bottom of the TV blandly, concentrating on Jim's fingers in his hair as he did so. It took him a while to offer, "We're leaving the country, aren't we?"

"Oh yes," Jim replied as if surprised it had taken him that long to mention it. “A bit of sun will do wonders for your complexion."

He closed his eyes, pressed his neck into Jim's fingers, the 'collar' tugging comfortably. "Can I bring both guns?"

"You can bring whatever guns you want," Jim promised him fondly. "I'm sure there will be opportunity to use them."

"Good."

He knew where they were going next. Right into the heart of the warzone. And little did the warzone know, they were bringing *real* war with them. 

Next stop, Afghanistan.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seb waited to take the canteen from Jim, watched him lower it and almost drop it. Wrapped his fingers around it, and took a swig from it himself to rinse the semen-taste out of his mouth before capping it again, and holding a good sized piece of the flatbread to Jim. He ate it hungrily, and Seb wondered how the hell Jim had survived before he was around. He suspected there were a lot more random deaths, a lot more drugs and Jim passing out from hunger every now and then. "We just need to get hold of a few more centers of activity and we'll have the strongest network in country."

It always seemed like a three ring circus whenever they did a good will visit to one of the local villages. John was pretty much used to it, but it was almost like the whole damn camp went on the move to make sure he and the other medicos got there and back safely. They ended up doing it regularly though because it was one of the most powerful positive gestures they could do and Sherlock found it invaluable. People came in from surrounding areas and he picked up information from people who they literally would never have seen otherwise.

Being a doctor here was something he had adapted to, got the handle on and the pattern of being with Sherlock.

Sherlock stood in the back and looked important, looked like he was running it, and watched everything. Observed everything. John knew when he got back he was going to get a data dump, and Sherlock was going to gleefully fill in some of his incomplete information requests, stitch together new pieces of information. There was just... a light that hit Sherlock's eyes when he caught onto something, a pure compressed glee.

He loved to tell John all about it, use him as a sounding board. Frequently he told him he was an idiot, but John had become convinced virtually everyone would seem that way to Sherlock, regardless of their intelligence.

This was a new village though and it was pushing at the edges of their safe range so he had his hands full.

There was a lot of worry about whether there was a body bomber in the slowly organized crowd. They were trying to triage it as well -- there were people who were horribly injured, and there were lingering things and then consultations that needed to be done, and all of them yielded information for Sherlock about the state of the village, about the state of the surrounding area, about who was in control of whom.

He had the knack to prioritizing though. There were some who were going to have to be seen back at the camp if they were going to make it and their escort insisted on examining them as he moved on to the next, delegating here and there, using his observational skills Sherlock had been trying to train into him.

And then he came across his newest patient and there was just something that made him look up and catch Sherlock's eye.

~"Hello."~ He had a wracking cough, something that sounded sinus to John, but he was alert, healthy-seeming otherwise. He looked not-quite local, didn't look like the rest of the various tribesmen that were there. The clothes were good, well worn, worn normally, but John was willing to bet a weeks’ worth of hot messing that the man was at least half Russian.

"Hello, I am Doctor John," he said out of habit. "Let's take a look at you. What is your name?"

"Piruz." He put a hand to his chest, and gave another lingering cough.

"Is it your chest that is bothering you?" John was thankful that he had learned the language as part of his study course. A little time immersed in the locale and the dialect came to him naturally.

"Yes. I'm always sick." He gestured high to his chest -- upper respiratory, maybe? And the dialect wasn't quite. Right. It wasn't clicking.

"Well, lest have a listen to your chest," he said functioning on autopilot. "How long have you been sick this time?"

"Since the winter." He inhaled, and John could hear a good rattle.

It was a genuine enough infection. "Do you have pain when you breathe?" he asked as he tried to take note of any hints in his appearance. So why would this one risk coming down out of the mountains for something not a mortal wound?

He nodded faintly. "For deep breaths." Was he there to blend into the village? There wasn't something right about his presence there, and he could see Sherlock pacing closer, with that sort of imperious tilt of his head that made him look like a perfect supervisor.

He gave the surreptitious gesture that they had worked out as a code between them. "Well now Piruz I need to look in your throat so open wide."

He opened his mouth after a moment of hesitance, which was normal as far as John had experienced. He was almost being too-compliant. It was better to just let Sherlock observe and take what there was to take.

There was very obvious dental work in there but he didn't even comment. Russian dental work, easy to spot, a bugger to fix. "Do you have dizziness at all?"

"No. Well." There was a pause. "When I stand up in mornings, sometimes."

Sinus infection then, probably draining persistently onto the chest. John smiled and nodded. "Is it cold and damp where you are usually? That will not help.”

He nodded, but didn't do the standard gesture over his shoulder sort of "I live back there or up there" thing that John was used to.

"Well, I think you have a sinus infection here," he gestured. "Which runs down to your chest. So I am going to give you antibiotics. Did you come from far away?"

"Back up in the mountains." Oh yes, one of their tormentors, then. Sherlock circled around behind him, at a careful distance.

"Try and keep warm and dry when you can," John said as if that was the only reason he was asking. "Here are some antibiotics. You must take three of these with meals every day until they are all gone to try and clear the infection. It is a relief to do a simple illness after so many injuries."

"Thank you, Doctor." He was staring almost curiously at the antibiotics -- but again, no fight about the drugs, either. "Thank you. Thank you!"

"No problem," John answered. "Next time we are in the area come back and we will see if managed to get rid of it.

He gave another rattling cough, and nodded at John as he started to his feet. "Yes, I will. God willing." And then he headed out, with Sherlock trailing him at a distance. 

That was very odd. Particularly unsubtle and atypical. Was it just sloppiness or bait? He tried to keep an eye on what Sherlock was doing.

But the next person was being ushered in, and he hung back, hesitated before he moved on. There was a brief spiking of concern for Sherlock, and it was hard to shove that down.

John carried on, knowing he would hear about whatever amazing details Sherlock had managed to glean from the encounter later in their billet. He had played his part, alerted his Benefactor, and then stood back. He just hoped that this time, there was a grain of gold in among all the dross.

He was tired of always coming up with dross as far as intelligence went.

* * *

Afghanistan was hot, hotter than Iraq had been, though Seb wasn't sure if the heat or the sandstorms were worse. He had a good observation point, and the work, the organizing they were doing was interesting, intriguing. Jim thought *big*, that was for sure.

His initial assumption of it being a small successful covert operations of runaway Companions had been swiftly put to bed. Jim's organization was huge and he played with politics in the same way other people might hold a cocktail party.

He was like a singularity, in constant motion, sucking everyone in around him. Compelling, emotional, mesmerizing and touching every red button point he had.

And he knew Seb. He probably knew everything, didn't have to say it. It was just out there. There was no leaving, and no reason to leave. Nowhere to go, either, and Jim had seen to that, too, before they'd left the country. Staggeringly, breathtakingly brilliant, and Seb helped him organize. He got erratic sometimes, spiked high and swung low, and Seb wanted to wrap him up in sheets when he got like that. Jim was having that sort of day just then, and it was a shame Seb had already pre-arranged to infiltrate a shura. There'd been a lot of work into getting into that, and masking his features enough, shifting how he carried himself.

It was like theatre, and he'd made it through. Someone had been following him, so he'd doubled up, went higher, taken an observation point.

He had a good view, and was well concealed. It would be interesting to see who was out here now. He hoped it wasn't another one of his old team because right now that time of his life felt flat and like a sepia photo compared to the technicolour extravaganza that was life with Jim.

Whoever it was, was good. They weren't making the normal mistakes.

He was trying to stick to the seams of things, lingering at edges, holding still. Seb matched him, watching him. Any fight out there would have to be short, and would draw attention -- and probably not from Seb's help. Was it one of the village elders wanting to have a word with the strange fellow who'd represented the mountain-bound organization who had a hand in distributing their upcoming poppy harvest.

The man had made him, identified him and focused on approaching without being obvious. He wanted to talk and was uncommonly tall for a native of this region.

And he was headed his way.

He held, finally. He was too far from reinforcements to make a scene, but he could still kill him and hide the body out there in the foothills. No one would even care or notice until it was too late for it to matter, Seb decided.

Just as the figure was reaching a point where he was going to make a decision to take him out or run, they stop and called out in a perfect dialect. "I wish to talk to you, if you will it. It will be worthwhile to you."

He had the facial hair that was appropriate for someone his age, but he was too pale, too white, even with gear on that was acceptable for that area. He shifted up from his wary squat, a hand clearly on his gun. "I want no foreign dealings."

"I am a seeker of truth," the man answered. "No deal has to be made, only the hospitality and conversation of two seekers searching for the right way."

"You mistake me for a polite man. God willing, you saw I was not at the gathering." He took one step closer to the man, watching his eyes.

He saw the moment when the man’s eyes widened just a little. "But we may be companions searching for a common truth even if following the different paths god puts before us," he said earnestly.

No, there was something wrong. There was something that twigged at Seb as he gestured faintly with his gun. That lilt, that lilt was familiar. "Take your shemagh off."

"As good faith, I will allow you to see my face," the man replied and carefully pulled it down a bit.

There was no hiding the long face, the context for those eyes. The extremely familiar profile, and he tried to not show recognition. Hoped he didn't show recognition of *Sherlock* after so fucking long. He wished it had've been someone else from the team. That would've been easier, somehow. "As good faith, I ask you to leave these grounds and not follow me."

"If you talk with me, I shall respect your privacy," Sherlock was frowning a little as if reading something in what was visible of his face. He remembered, Mycroft had always said Sherlock had excelled in observation.

Sherlock probably thought he was chasing down Russians and their affiliates, and there was Seb. He stood his ground, but didn't move, either. "Shall you?"

There was the sound of a sigh. "Clearly. It would be beneficial for us to talk."

Seb stood there with his jaw set, wondering if it would be easier to just pull the trigger and be done with it. "Then talk."

"Tell me how far you have gone," Sherlock said. "I follow a path here and it ends here with you."

Madness, madness and subtlety, the sort that made Jim smile and almost vibrate in delight. Word games, and inflections, and making everything multi-layered, hints interlaced with distractions interlaced with neon signs pointing the wrong way. Seb kept his hands on his gun. Was that it, though? Was that... was it Mycroft trying to bring him home? "Did you mean for it to end here?"

"No. I had a goal, a common goal and it led me here," Sherlock said with emphasis that was communicating 'for fucks sake'.

Yeah, fuck, he'd been made. Seb dropped back to English, and gestured for Sherlock to come closer. "For fuck's sake. If you knew it was me, why not fucking say so?"

"You were the one being cagey. I had to be close enough to tell for sure," Sherlock said in a low voice. "You are looking well enough for a dead man."

"You don't look shocked." He could loiter there for a little while, in the shadows and seams, sheltered by rocks, but soon enough he'd need to head back to the base, and it was a damn long walk. "I've found them. Whatever lead got you this far, it was a good one -- this is the group Mycroft always was looking for. But I didn't find Paul." And now after so many months, he suspected he never would. There were no murmurs, and he heard about a *lot* of prisoners in different complexes, held by other organizations. Nothing.

"I have been following Paul and it's led me to your group. Ergo, logic would dictate if this group does not have him, then they know who might," Sherlock looked at him sharply. "How deep are you?"

His group. His group. He turned that over in his head. Jim knew him, knew him inside and out, knew what he was going to do before he did it. If he had Paul, he'd keep him miles away from Seb. "Deeper than I ever wanted to be. 2IC. There's still a lot of the organization left that lives only in Jim's head. I know everything that makes it to paper."

Sherlock was looking at him. "Horrifying though it is to admit, Mycroft is... pining. I would never have thought it of him, but there is the truth of the matter. Sebastian, do you need to return?"

He looked down, knew what Sherlock was picking off of it. "Not yet. I still haven't found Paul. Look... Come back to this spot in a week. Don't come to the shura. I'll leave a flash drive." Make it worth something. Make it all fucking worth something, all of it, just to get a little information out. Never mind that he *knew* he was done for as soon as Sherlock burned him.

He nodded. "John is with me. He thinks you are dead but refuses to acknowledge it as a truth. Sebastian, whatever you think of us, don't forget him."

"Can't, Can't do anything about this, either, can't leave, can't go home. Keep him safe out here. Jim was a companion, once, and he likes collecting." He shouldered his gun.

"Give me his name," Sherlock said. "Jim...?" He seemed intrigued.

"Moriarty. Art of death. I don't know if that was original, or an alias, or...." He shifted his weight, making to go.

Sherlock nodded. "A name. It helps." He moved to leave and paused "When you come home, you will tell John you are alive yourself."

Yeah, when hell froze over. Seb shook his head as he turned to start up his preferred footpath, pulling his shemaugh back into a more comfortable position. "And when I don't, you can say nothing. I'll see you again, Insha’Allah."

He didn't look back over his shoulder. In a week, he'd go to Shura again, make the same threats with teeth behind them or thank them for their cooperation. He'd leave a flash drive for Sherlock, and move on. Moving on was the important part.

The further he walked, hiked, the less he thought about it, until he'd managed to blank his mind again, tamp everything down to restless anger and pride in another job well done, accomplished, one more thread added to Jim's endless webbing. 

It was easier to see a reward from Jim. He worked on immediate returns, for immediate actions. He knew where he was with Jim; on a knife edge that made everything else seem distant and 2 dimensional.

He settled into it easily, pulled it on like an old skin he never knew he'd had or needed. He slipped into the sparse village that was theirs, lingered to pet a goat before he slipped into the ancient building Jim preferred that gave way on the inside to a network of caves. Very defensible.

Comfortable too. Jim had a way of kitting the place out that made it luxurious even in a cave system. And completely out of place, he could hear Jim's ring tone of the moment echoing down the caves.

The repeaters leading down into the complex were a classy touch, Seb had decided long ago. He quieted his steps, nodded hello to two of his guys as he passed them on his way to Jim.

He could hear him rattling off orders effortlessly in different languages and tossing the phone down as he entered the room.

"Seb!" Jim seemed delighted to see him. "Been having fun? Aw, no blood, can't have been that interesting."

"It went smoothly," he assured, shrugging off his gun, and starting to loosen up his travelling gear a little. "They dug their heels in a little, but they're going to give in."

"Good, good." Jim swept over and tugged at him to snatch a kiss. "You taste good."

The edge of his mouth twitched a little, and he dropped a hand to rest against Jim's hip. The man managed to look graceful and tailored in shalwar kameez. "I taste like chai and flatbread."

"Oo my favourite," Jim answered in a semi-mocking tone. "Did you bring me back a present? Or will I have to make my own?"

"A huge incoming poppy pull. Other than that, I've got nothing." Except that he was relaxing, and it was good to settle in, to come home. "Zalmay mentioned that there were alliance patrols at the edge of his lands last week."

"Tsk, well we might have to do something about that," he replied. "Well poppies are fun, and profitable. You should have a present! A tank! Maybe we should buy you a tank!"

Seb caught himself smirking a little, as Jim's eyes were so fucking bright as he teased Seb. "Where the fuck would I park it, boss? Can you imagine watching it roll down an incline? End over end."

Jim practically bounced. "Let's do it! Let’s steal a tank and then roll it down a hill. Where's the nearest tanks?"

He gave a startled exhale, and gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. "Back in Kabul. Now, the big armored hummers with the guns in them, there's some of those closer..."

"Come on Seb, if you steal one I'll suck you off while we are driving a getaway," Jim promised all wide bright eyes and shit knew how much in the way of drugs.

Jesus. It wasn't the first time, but seeing Jim all messed up made him want to wrap the other failure of a Companion in cotton wool. He moved a hand, pressed his thumb against Jim's eyebrow lightly to pull up one eyelid. "What the fuck were you smoking while I was out?"

"Seb, Seb, Seb..." Jim pouted. "Why do you always say that when I have a great idea? A fucking amazing idea!"

Yeah, pupils blown so far he could see his reflection in the black of his eyes

"It's a *high* idea, and you'd peel my skin off as soon as you got sober if I let you try it," he murmured, edging Jim further back into his part of the complex. "Were you that bored while I was gone?"

"Fuck yeah," Jim replied. "Everyone is so *boring*. So ordinary Seb, why are they so ordinary?" It was a definite whine and Seb latched onto him.

He got Jim up against the wall, because he knew pinning him in place was a sure bet to get him to shove back or whine or at least hit Seb. Something, anything, but a reaction, for sure. "Because they're stupid, and they don't know how to keep up with someone as brilliant as you are when you're *not* high."

Jim, unpredictable as ever decided this would be the time to gnaw on his arm like a puppy. "Well I wanted to start a war in South America, but I decided to hack into a spy satellite instead."

He was pretty sure that teeth wouldn't break through two, three layers of fabric, but it did make him reluctant to move his arm, even as he curled his fingers down to press on the small of Jim's back. "Troop movement satellite, or...?" That'd be useful, god, actual alliance troop movement.

"Oh yes, oh indeed yes, a little present for you and your squads," Jim said. "Are you going to thank me for it?"

Alliance troop movements. They'd never see one of their patrols again, unless they wanted to. Oh, that was good, and that was just the *passive* shit they could do. Just watch and observe and know, that wasn't even putting in any effort.

Down in a dark cave, with Jim's teeth marks in his coat, and bright blown pupils. He nudged Jim a few more backwards steps, towards the well-lit privacy of his personal server room. It kept the place warmer than the rest of the place, even if Seb did almost trip on the cords running out of it five times out of six. "Anything you want."

"I want you, here and now," Jim growled. "I want to devour you...” His teeth pressed harder. "Suck me off. Now."

He leaned into Jim a little, enough to push him back half a millimeter and to get his jacket free of his teeth. Sliding to his knees was easy, it was more of a clothes in the way problem. He had to get the long, long shirt hitched up around Jim's hips, and then tug his pants down. They were permanently overdressed.

"I missed you," Jim groaned. "I wanted you so many times, so many ways. I was imagining you cold and lean out there in the sand and grit."

"You romanticise hiking in the middle of nowhere." It was doable, relaxing, almost, but clearly Jim shouldn't have been left alone. Seb leaned forward, a scrape of teeth against Jim's hips as he tasted bare skin. Jim didn't leave the cave complex often, but he kept cleaner than Seb most of the time.

"Mmm, it's all I have to do," Jim said as he gripped his hair tight. "Yeah, like that." His grip was tight and rough.

Seb hummed quietly, eyes closed as Jim used his other hand to hitch his shirt up better. He moved against hands in his hair to press his mouth against the base of Jim's cock. Just mouthing there, lingering because he could, and taking his time working up to it.

"I wanted to shoot that bastard Warren. How the fuck do you deal with him?" Jim said conversationally.

"Leave him in his corner to do inventory. Works great," Seb murmured against Jim's skin. He closed his mouth over the head of Jim's cock, trying to see if it would distract him at all.

"But he kept coming out of the corner," Jim complained. "He really is too stupid to live."

He groaned against Jim's cockhead, and pulled back long enough to mutter, "You killed him, didn't you? Christ."

"No!" Jim replied. "Well...maybe a little. He could still be alive."

"Oh, fuck." Could still be alive, yeah, there wasn't any sense in even trying. Seb exhaled, pressing his forehead against Jim's hip. "C'mon, you know how hard it is to get new staff out here..."

"I'm only teasing," Jim said. "I just sent him to the city for supplies." There was still a hint of mania there. 

Seb hoped Jim was only teasing, and he wouldn't be able to tell for a while. He shook his head, and tried to go back to sucking Jim, closing his eyes again while he tried to take him in all the way.

Sometimes it was a joke, sometimes it was a fake out and who the hell knew? Jim was becoming less sharp edged and painfully animated under his touch and he knew that feeling. Touch starved, intimacy crazed.

Stupidest fucking thing, and Jim swore up and down that it wasn't a companion thing. But whatever it was, it was real and Seb eased into it, the feeling of fingers in his hair grounding him. He just couldn't consider whether or not they were short a staff member.

It sometimes made him wonder what had happened to Jim as a Companion, but it was an area they just could not talk about. Jim refused, evaded and got goddamn pissed as all hell if he tried. Best to stay in the here and now. 

"Yeah, that's… fuck, yeah...”

Seb knew when to stop trying.

He slurped, sucking hard on his way back, and then relaxing as he leaned forward. Every once in a while, he hummed in the back of his throat, and finally started to fall into the flow.

Jim was obviously keyed up because there was no restraint there at all, he was fucking Seb's throat with abandon within a couple of minutes. 

He breathed through his nose when Jim rocked back, focusing on not gagging, on keeping up with the thrust thrust thrust. There was no telling if Jim wanted to just come and be done, or if he had other plans or what he wanted. Seb was just along for the ride. All but gargling his cock.

It seemed he was just desperate to get off to start with because he didn't hold back and came in his mouth with a guttural shout. "Fuck yeah!" His impulse control was crap when he'd been taking things.

Seb swallowed, choking a little as he pulled back and wiped the drool from his bottom lip, swallowing again. Maybe if he was lucky he could just get Jim down in the bedrolls and sleeping bags, and get him *settled*.

"Yes, that was... that hit the spot," Jim said stroking through his hair. "If you weren't the only competent person here I would never let you out of my sight."

"I'm pretty sure you count as a competent person, boss," Seb joked, leaning into him a little as he slid his hand over the half-bared skin of Jim's tight ass. "C'mon. Anything you want."

"We are going to bed and not coming out for days," Jim declared. "That is my plan and my anything I want."

"I thought you were trying to buck the conception that companions left to their own devices don't do anything except fuck." He got off of his knees slowly, though, staying close against Jim while he tried to shrug out of his coat.

"Well I might get bored eventually, but you are the only one not boring me Seb," Jim said almost plaintively. "I missed the way you snore in my ear."

"Only when you're trying to smother me." He dropped his coat to the floor, an easy shrug off of his shoulders, but the shemaugh and the man dress were way more of a pain in the ass than the pants were. Boots, too, and Jim was just effortless to get naked by comparison. It was a miracle he didn't have breakaway velco in his death-long shirt. 

"Better," he said. "Much better." He was less edgy and warmer. "And you look tired Seb."

He nodded a little. "Yeah, a bit. Doesn't matter." If Jim had a preference, then he could stay awake for a long while. He hadn't fallen asleep during sex yet.

"But it does..." Jim was weaving himself around him somehow. "It does. You've been busy and you come back and drop to your knees and suck my cock because I ask you too and… well, who else is that loyal?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and kept his arm looped around Jim comfortably. "When was the last time you ate? I do have some flatbread..."

"As long as I don't have to move to get it," Jim replied. "Don't remember when I ate. I was busy trying not to be bored."

"That's important, but..." Seb snagged his travel ruck, which he kept closer than his gun, and it was just three steps backwards and then three steps forward to nudge Jim into his bedding. "C'mere, good filtered water, too."

"How did I ever manage without you?" he said settling down and wanting him there with him. "I'm sorry Seb. I told you I was like this sometimes. It was so much worse before."

"Nothing to apologize for." He crossed his legs, uncapping the canteen to hand it to Jim first. Water, then food, then water again. "I'm supposed to fill in the gaps. That's what I do."

"Not all you do though. We'll take some time, have a little fun after we both sleep," Jim promised.

Not all he did, but maybe what he was best at. Seb waited to take the canteen from Jim, watched him lower it and almost drop it. Wrapped his fingers around it, and took a swig from it himself to rinse the semen-taste out of his mouth before capping it again, and holding a good sized piece of the flatbread to Jim.

He ate it hungrily, and Seb wondered how the hell Jim had survived before he was around. He suspected there were a lot more random deaths, a lot more drugs and Jim passing out from hunger every now and then. "We just need to get hold of a few more centers of activity and we'll have the strongest network in country."

"Bar the alliance," Seb agreed, reaching for another piece to give to Jim. 

"I want us to be stronger," Jim said taking another bite. "I've always wanted a country in my pocket. If we do it right the network will not rely on us to be present to work."

"As long as our self-interests are theirs, yeah." Yeah, and mostly they were. At the base of it, all they were asking people to do was things they'd do anyway. But a better price point. He lifted the canteen again in a questioning offering.

Jim took another swig, his pupils still wide and dark with the effects of the drugs. "I don't like it when you leave me," he said handing it back. "Maybe we should take a vacation. Have you ever hunted tigers in India?"

"No, can't say I have." He cocked an eyebrow. India seemed a decent distance away back in England, but they were two border crossings away now. The random shit Jim suggested, just, random shit. 

"I think you'd like it. You've got that patience. And India is loud and interesting and I won't get bored. I like to go looking for lost temples. Sometimes I wear a hat and carry a whip. Plus, elephants. You can walk over someone’s house in an elephant!" Jim said sounding enthusiastic.

"Or through it." He could quietly humor that high idea, watching as Jim finished off his bread and swallowed. "You've gone looking for lost temples before, then?"

"Yeah! Found two so far. Made a killing on some of the statues and artefacts I found. Sold most of it, but I liked my ruby encrusted whip handle." Jim smiled a little. "Really, I'm not sure why people find it so hard to find them. I just do research and if you go to the original carvings and scrolls you usually find information has been mistranslated. And then you get some satellite photos of the areas and use some logic. People position their cities for various purposes but everywhere needs water." Jim appeared happily distracted by the thought and that was good.

"What about the ones where time and rain, or erosion have worked their magic and left them covered over with dirt?" He knew enough to follow Jim's train of thought. "Places like India, south America, the jungles reclaim things..."

"You factor that in," Jim said. "It is easy enough. Knowledge of weather patterns in the region, from records, from local oral knowledge." He smiled nostalgically. "I financed some of my first deals by finding my first place. I think we could go again...see how our underlings cope without us, look for another in a region tigers are known. Spend a bit of time in luxury too. I like a bit of luxury."

"Cave life getting to you?" A whole lot of no sunlight, no real interaction with people. And Jim did pamper himself. Seb shifted in closer, because, yeah, it was cold down there. "Can't say I'd say no to some nice steady heat right now."

"Yeah," Jim answered and then wriggled over to clutch at him. "Tomorrow I'll make arrangements."

"I'll tidy up a couple of negotiations tomorrow, then," he murmured, letting Jim clutch because it was easy, and comfortable. They fit well together, even when Jim was daftly high.

"Yeah," Jim said and sprawled using him more as a bed than the bed itself. "You do that. You'll love it. We'll have a great time."

Leave the organization without immediate oversight. Leave Sherlock a flash drive. Leave, leave Afghanistan. Leave the search for Paul, leave John -- god, John was Home with Sherlock, then, when had that one slipped through his fingers? -- leave...

Seb closed his eyes, wrapping his arms loosely around Jim. "Pretty sure you're right."

"I always am," Jim murmured in his ear, and he could feel the smile pressed into his skin and that was all he could think of right here and right now.

* * *

It was different to going out on a village visit, but John had done several trips out with a squad as a field medic so he tried to look like it was old hat. Janet quite willingly passed that off to him saying she had done her fair share and he was less likely to hold them back. She'd been right about being able to keep up with the soldiers giving him the respect money couldn't buy despite his youth. They knew he was a Companion so they gave him some shit over that, but that was just guy talk and there were Companion pairs there as well so it was pretty good.

It wasn't a bad atmosphere. The other benefactors there were pretty good guys, or at least they seemed like. There were a range of age pairs, too, with him and Sherlock being the youngest. There was an NCO pair that were career that were pretty impressive. It wasn't at all the negative stuff he'd been expecting. Hell, Sherlock was probably the worst person on post to be working with.

He got a lot of commiserating laughs out of them all about it and he half thought that if Sherlock went career military he could deal with that. Lots of support for their kind as a high percentage of military were Benefactors on their Service. Still, he found it pretty exciting to be out on an actual op. Sherlock had gone on one of his military intelligence walkabouts and that meant he didn't have to get guilty about not being at the base.

When he was on the base, Sherlock tended to swoop in and grab him, tended to get his attention and talk him through ideas. Regardless of what he was doing, though mid surgery was usually excused. It felt oddly like abandoning Sherlock to not be there if he was on post. But when he was looking for information on his own... John didn't mind going out with a squad.

Even if it was as hot as hell out.

There was something strangely satisfying about getting out into the middle of nowhere on some sort of mission. He wasn't sure of all the details, only he was to try not to screw it up and keep the others from getting hurt, or patch them up if they did.

There was an emergency in one of the villages, and it was a big enough group moving out that he felt safe, secure in the midst of them. Not that the words 'emergency' seemed to be indicative of what was going on. Medical, or... political?

It could be either, he knew that. But he felt pretty ready for it. He had tested out well with his firearms, had even had to use them on a couple of occasions and they were a strong group. Even so, he had nerves as they approached their destination. "Any further details sir?" he asked the Major in charge.

"We've got a village elder in need of medical care, as well as a destabilizing element present waiting for him to die. There's a bit of a standoff. I suspect they're hoping to deny medical care until it's a moot issue..." Ah, that explained why he was there.

"So if we come in with a Doctor on tap then it will be hard for them to stop us without showing their hand and losing support," John said. "Are they likely to use force immediately sir?"

"No. It's just tense. Be ready, and stay with your squad." They'd gotten one last report on the area, and were mounting back up to head the rest of the way in.

"Yes sir," he replied and headed back to the soldiers who were acting as his escort of the day. They'd gotten over the being incredibly polite and treated him like one of them.

"Done asking stupid questions, sir?" Sgt. Barneby asked, leaning out the window of their vehicle.

"Thought the Major might think we'd died back here or something," John said getting in. "You lot get pissy when I try running ahead when I'm meant to be staying back."

"Yeah, we get pissy at everything," Lt. Southers joked. "Just sit tight, sir."

"Sitting tight," John replied. "Don't lose my gear. Anyway if you guys know what is going on, you could have mentioned it."

"Nah, it's funnier to watch you officers carry on like you're the only thinking dudes in the convoy," Barneby mocked.

"Bastard," John said with good humor. "While you and Stevens have a good laugh at my expense, I get it. Try not to hit every pothole. How far away is this little soiree then?"

"Three klicks." Hardly any distance at all. They were almost there, then, so John settled, watching the roads. That they'd made it so far undisturbed was a good sign.

It was sometimes difficult to see anything through the kicked up dust. He wondered where Sherlock was right now. Probably up near the mountains. There had been some drifting bits of information that had got him wound up and not even willing to talk to him about it.

It was good, but it wasn't anything he was comfortable telling John. Which John took as telling. There was very, *very* little that Sherlock declined to tell John. It was something for him to mull over.

It could be really, really bad, or he had a lead on something big. Bloody roads, his back would be wrecked after this trip. He could hear the reports calling it clear as they reached the village.

When it wasn't potholes, it was hastily filled in explosions and alliance detonated bombs. He hung on, waited through it when the convoy pulled to a halt. "We've got small arms fire coming in...." It was being passed up and back on radio, and John could hear it, too, from the safety of their enclosure.

That meant he was going to be sitting in the goddamn transport until he was given the all clear. He grabbed his kits ready though. Small arms fire meant casualties if they were unlucky and if anyone stuck their head out. He could hear their own guns giving answering fire, but his vehicle had no such turret.

Reports started coming though, wounded reported and he was going to have to go in. "Stevens, any in our line I can get to?"

"We're still taking fire, sir," Stevens uttered, leaning in towards the window.

"I can see that sergeant," he replied. "I repeat is there wounded in our line?"

"Dammit, yes, yes there is, and no, you're not going out there..." Except that he was. Except that he *had* to.

"Right." That was his job as a doctor, to go out there even if it was under fire and save lives. So he went and it was fucking loud out there. Louder than people would believe from TV and the movies. He sprinted up the line to deal with their wounded, finding a flesh wound in a soldier up the line. 

"Hey, not doing too bad here, Scott," he said recognizing the young man who was bleeding from a point near his hip. "Let’s get a pressure bandage on that."

They hauled him the rest of the way into the back of the vehicle, and it was briefly too dark back there to work -- just briefly, and then someone had a torch out for him to work by, mingled with the muddied daylight from the thigh windows. 

This was where the training came into focus, stabilizing, talking to him, getting the bullet out, dosing the wound - no surgery on this one as it as a clean through and through. Dealt with, sorted, patched up and moving on to the next patient while the gun battle continued.

All they had to do was waiting for air support. It was coming, and he was confident that the unit knew what they were doing. He halfway wanted them to back out, to turn around and go, go back the way they'd came, go back to the FOB. They were pinned down, and then there were the tires that were shot out, making escape worse, less likely.

This was looking less like a rescue mission and more like an ambush. He ducked among the vehicles, delivering some first aid and trying to close up with the others into a better defensive position. "Fuck," he muttered under his breath as he ducked down with some of the others. 

"C'mon, captain, let's just hunker down in a vec..." His lt. was urging that, but he need to be out and treating... And then he heard gunfire coming from behind their position.

"Shit!" he pulled his gun, which he rarely did because he knew as well as anyone they wouldn't immediately think he was a doctor, and if they did that made him hot property. "The bastards are flanking us!"

"Get in the vehicles!" The lt. was shouting, howling, trying to steer him with a hand on John's back just as they were over run. There was nothing to do but flee as much as he could, firing madly, try to not get killed.

This was where fitness was necessary; they were running like hell, trying to find a way out...a refuge. 

No fucking chance.

He had a gun for a reason, but when he fumbled a reload while running and someone tackled him to the ground, grabbing at his wrists, he knew the mission had gone horribly wrong.

More than one person on him as he yelled and tried to shoot his goddamn gun and all his training went out of his head in the blinding moment of panic. He remember to yell out he was a doctor, that was currency in keeping himself alive.

Hands around his neck eased, but they were hauling him to his feet, wrapping his wrists in rope, and then, incongruously, he felt the bite of plastic zip ties.

Crap, like a lot of Companions he knew how to get out of a basic rope tie, but plastic zip ties? They had come prepared to capture, not to just overwhelm. He tried looking around, see what had happened to everyone else.

Which was when he had a sack pulled down over his head. He'd spotted his Sgt getting hauled to his feet much the same as John, but he'd seen blood on the man's shirt as well.

Where they were going, what was happening, *who* they were. He shuffled himself up carefully, trying to see how much of the burlap sack he could get up. He needed to stay aware of where they were headed and where he was, in case he could escape.

Was there anyone else in there with him? Well he'd find out if he tried to wriggle the sack off his head. They were heading up somewhere, he could feel a steep incline.

He just had to listen. He didn't hear any of his unit, but he wasn't making any sound, either, except clearing his throat. Nothing in answer, though, not even after a long delay.

Others were taken, he'd seen that but no one else was with him? Fuck. They'd cut him out of the herd pretty cleanly. He then contorted his way around trying to get his wrists in front of him.

The flex cuffs were digging into his wrists as soon as he got his wrists down to his ass, stretching and twisting. "Stop that."

So there was someone there with him. "Who are you?” he asked boldly enough. They had been sitting there watching him silently and that was unusual too.

"Doesn't matter. You're not home yet." But god, he spoke *English*, perfectly. He sounded almost Welsh, and it was the oddest thing.

"Who are you?" John repeated. Had he been picked up by a merc? That wasn't right, not for this conflict. "Where are you taking me?"

"Home. We're taking you home. You just don't know it yet." Oh god. Oh god, that sounded unhinged. That sounded unhinged, and unhinged was never a good sign when captors were involved.

"Look, I already have a home," he said wondering if they could hear him right. "I don't want to go home with you."

"This isn't a want, Dr. Holmes." And it was on his name-tape, right there for anyone with eyes to read, but it still sent a chill up his spine.

"Where is the rest of my squad?" he asked blindly searching for clues. He needed to focus. He could still observe while blindfolded. He could listen, smell, analyse. Sherlock would be ashamed of him if he didn't.

He couldn't let any of it slip through his grasp. But the truck was closed, and his guard, captor, whatever the man was, was close to him. He smelled of heat and sweat, but nothing worse than John himself probably did. He could smell blood, from the wounds he'd tended to, one of them deep. "Dead."

"They weren't dead when you grabbed me," he tried to deny it could be possible. 

"They were after we drove off, Companion. They were nothing to us." A hand touched his shoulder, and then it as gone. Now his heart sank. It wasn't just his nametape, then. They'd been looking for him.

"Why am I alive?" he asked almost belligerently allowing his emotions of loss and fear to surface as anger. "I'm just a doctor!"

"Major Sherlock Holmes' companion. Brother to Mycroft Holmes. Oh, you're not just a doctor, *Doctor*. Now sit quietly and enjoy the drive."

Fuck. He'd been targeted. It was always a concern that he might be interrogated for information that Sherlock could have shared with him. "He doesn't share anything sensitive with me," he said which was a complete lie right there. "I don't get involved in his work."

Lie again.

"Doesn't matter if you did or you didn't. I'm sure you'd die loyal. Holmes's to the end, eh?" The man in the back of the truck with him laughed, and then gave an oof as they hit a hard bump in the road. "The boss wants you. The boss gets you."

He nearly lost his balance at that. "You're not local here," he said. "Who's the boss? What does he want with me?"

"He wants you." There was a smile in that voice. "The boss wants you. You're a doctor, and a companion. He collects companions."

"Jesus." What could he say to that? A companion collector... that was a different ball game completely.

That was bizarre, and something he'd never considered would happen. That was like, horror movie shit. He was pretty sure they'd *seen* something called the Companion Collector as one of Seb's bizarre literary film adventures, right after the Scarlet Branding. "I was one."

"Then let me go," he urged. "I don't want to be collected by some horror movie reject. I'm happy where I am."

"I think you'll find that your opportunities expand..." It wasn't making it better. Nothing the man was saying was making it better.

"Abducting me, killing my friends and colleagues, that isn't making me want to deal with you," John replied and he knew he was pushing his luck by being so forceful when he had a sack on his head.

"You don’t have to deal with me. You have to deal with yourself, John. Dr. Jim did." And with that, the man went quiet. 

It was a hell of a time for him to go quiet.

And maybe that meant Dr Jim was still alive somewhere, captive of this insane group doing god only knew what. John wasn't sure what he was going to do about it but he did know one thing, Sherlock was going to be livid.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had almost been hard to recognize Seb when he'd been standing there -- half-tanned, half sunburnt, his hair sheered short and spiky, almost fashionable, which John'd never seen Seb do in his lifetime, not really. And his eyes were all wrong. Seb was moving like he was alone out there, but still looking over his shoulder, checking that he and Paul were still there. 
> 
> Like he was escorting them. As if he was going to drop them off somewhere, not part of them.

* * *

The trip took longer than John was comfortable with. They transferred vehicles once, and then there was a long walk. He stumbled more than once, held up by a hand on his arm and a warning to watch his step. The upward incline took a downward incline, into coldness, a damp sensation.

Caves, some sort of caves or underground facility, he was sure of it. He wasn't being handled too roughly though, considering. He'd been selected, captured and now he guessed he was being put in a cage until this companion Collector turned up.

He needed to stay alert, awake. He needed to escape at the first possible opportunity, it was his duty to escape as soon as he could. It still startled him when his hands were cut free and he was pushed forward.

"Hey, easy on him."

He was ripping off the sack over his head, not recognizing the rough voice, but the door was shut already, although surprisingly a medical kit had been tossed in with them. He looked around trying to orientate himself and saw an older man, faintly familiar lying on the floor.

"I can't believe this." He didn't really make an effort to stand up, but he did sit upright a little, staring openly at John. "Are you all right?"

"Aside from being fucking snatched and everyone around me killed, I'm fine," John answered looking at him more closely. "You look familiar? I'm John Holmes... Companion and a Doctor." Maybe he had been on some of the circulated pictures but he really did look familiar.

"Jesus, Sherlock's boy. I knew he planned on taking you to war with him..." He cleared his throat. "I'm Paul Tobias Gregson, agent of the crown."

"Paul? Seb's Paul?" John blurted that out and then winced. Paul might not even know Seb was dead. "Holy crap... how long have you been here?"

"More than a year. Four hundred and eighty two days. Give or take a couple of weeks. How is Seb? Mycroft?" Now that he was closer, he could see that Paul was in bad shape.

"Seb..." John didn't know how to say it as he knelt down to take a look at Paul's state of health. "Seb didn't make it, I'm sorry. Mycroft is devastated and hasn't given up looking for you. Sherlock spends half his time trying to find leads to you."

He blinked at John. Paul looked severely underweight, and there was a chain that disappeared up his pant leg, just for first impressions. "What do you mean, he didn't make it? I saw him get out."

"He was stabbed with a poisoned knife," John answered. "I couldn't believe it though I saw the camera footage. I… still don't let myself believe it properly. Let me take a look at you. What have they done to you?"

"Fuck." Paul leaned his head against the wall, eyes shut tightly. "No, I don't believe you. They've already gotten to you, and they sent you in here to lie to me..."

"No..." Maybe he should have lied. "I'm not sure I believe it though officially it's true. I mean, it's Seb. Maybe he's undercover or something. I don't know," John said. "They haven't gotten to me. Not yet anyway."

Paul was watching his face more intently now, still not moving in any manner that John was inclined to call helpful. "Tell me how Sherlock's been?"

"Well he's been... Sherlock," John replied with a smile. "Brilliant, manic, irritating as all fuck but a complete genius."

"He'll find you." He said it very firmly, meeting John's eyes. "And you'll get out of here alive."

"And you. No way are we leaving you behind. We've been looking for you far too long," John answered. "They've left me a medical kit so I'm assuming it's for you."

"They're interested in keeping me alive, though I don't know why. And it's only to a certain degree. This..." He shook his head slightly. "I'm glad to have company."

"Yeah me too, especially finding you," John said. "Sherlock has had you as a pet project for ages." Which was not particularly heartening because Paul had been that well concealed that Sherlock had not been able to locate him. He busied himself with the kit. "Let’s get a look at you."

"It's not pretty," Paul warned, finally moving. He started to unbutton his worn out looking shirt. "They took their time with me."

"You get much in the way of food?" John asked poking around in the pack. Yeah, no sharps in there but swabs, rubbing alcohol, ointments and antibiotics. 

"Enough. Sometimes it's all I can think about." A year in captivity. Over a year in captivity, and the first question the man asked was about people he cared about, and John told him one was dead. He could almost imagine every doctor he'd ever trained under frowning at him. 

"Okay, let’s take a look at you," John started the examination. Infection, yeah, low-grade fever. Malnourishment and marks of pretty horrific torture. He checked down downwards and frowned. "What the fuck...” he muttered when he got to his legs. ”What the hell had they done?"

It looked like someone had hammered an I-bolt into his leg, and then hooked the length of chain that was attached to the wall to it with a master lock. It had been expertly done, if Paul was still alive -- but it also looked infected. Paul nodded a little as he looked at it. "Their boss said he'd find someone to amputate it."

John grimaced. "Jesus, okay, I'm not touching that until we've got some surgical facilities. And some of the infection under control. This boss is a sick bastard." He started work on some of area around it, looking at his meager supplies. "You need a drain in here,” he said having to gently press hot skin to relieve some of the pus, and start a clean-up.

Paul exhaled hard through his teeth, and the muscles went tight. "Yeah, well. I need a lot of things, but it's probably not going to happen here. I think this guy likes watching movies too much."

It was pretty disgusting, and John knew he had his work cut out for him. He was worried infection had gotten into the bone and frankly amazed Paul was still alive let alone coherent. "Sounds like it. This is definitely a product of deranged imagination."

He nodded faintly, watching John's motions. "You have no idea. I hope you don't find out."

It chilled him to think he might. "I'm sorry Paul. I can tell it's been bad but I know that must only be part of it."

"Let's not relive torture, all right?" Paul's hands were knotted together, trying to hold back a pain reaction that John almost couldn't understand. "So, have I missed anything interesting out there?"

"Well, let’s see," John said and he dragged up some of the latest news he could find as he worked. The more he did so, the more fear settled into his bones. He was sure he would never be able to stand what Paul had withstood. "...and Mark told Mycroft in no uncertain terms not to move his skinny Benefactor ass. Sherlock was beside himself with wanting to laugh."

Paul gave a quiet, rough chuckle. "I wish I could've seen that. Skinny ass?" It wasn't that funny in John's head, and he'd been there, but Paul was smiling. "Mycroft's done the yo-yo diet shit for as long as I can remember. He'd've been secretly pleased."

"He's lost quite a bit since he lost you," John said. "I haven't seen him much because generally he and Sherlock are a natural disaster waiting to happen."

"They are." Paul grunted, and his knee twitched enough to make John stop in his work for a moment. "And now they're both alone. Seb. Seb was always supposed to go... undercover. At first, it was supposed to have been after I trained him and we were sure he was good at it. He was. Then it was... later. Eventually, Mycroft'd send him off to do it. What it really meant was never. It was a stupid Holmes sort of plan, the kind that didn't associate with reality. You've probably seen a few of those."

"Oh god yes," John replied. "Sherlock goes in with the sketchiest of plans because he was completely convinced he could out think anything on the fly. Annoyingly he often could." 

"It gets complicated when other people are involved. Not everyone falls nicely into line." Paul tilted his eyes to the ceiling. "This fellow who's got us, doesn't fall nicely into their lines. They think he does, but..."

"What do you know about them?" John asked starting on the next bit. He decided to go back to that when everything else was done. It was a bit like pissing in an inferno but the antibiotics might help. Briefly. That leg was probably going to have to come off, but he had no tools and no... Nothing he would've needed to do an amputation. It probably didn't even take weight on it any longer, and the ankle bones had felt broken and badly re-healed.

"Massive criminal cartel," Paul murmured, still not quite looking at John. "We've been looking for the seed of them for ages. Looking for anything more than a whisper that they exist. This is one of their out-branches. Franchise, if you could call it that. I've been passed between three or four of them now. Little criminal organizations, terrorist groups that're drawing support and guidance from this larger organization. There's no propaganda, no ranting about a higher cause. Every group is getting out of it what they want, and this larger structure..." He blinked, watching John again. "They have a doctor. He's one of their torturers. I recognized him from those pictures that were taken when you were in medical school. Whatever they did to him, he turned like I never did."

"Jim?" He was startled and there was something very horrifying about that. "Oh god, not Jim. I can't imagine him…" That scared him, that made him feel clammy with horror that he might be turned like that because Jim seemed a decent talented guy when he had been in the A&E with him. "He did some of this to you?"

John was hard pressed to believe a *doctor* could do anything like that to a person. Putting a bolt through their leg. The signs of broken bones, the scars Paul had on him... A doctor had done it. "Most of it. The, was he a companion runaway? Most of the parent organization types are. And now, you're here. I didn't, Mycroft didn't know that when he took it all on, he didn't know."

"I think he was," John said. "He never came out and said it but there were a few things that made me wonder. Are you telling me this organization is staffed with Companions?"

"Seems to be. The organizations it helps are all... Standard. Typical gangs and extremists, mobs, rebel groups, failing governments." 

"That's...a hell of a resource pool," John murmured. "Companion education is of the highest standard. We learn because it means our life how good we are. There isn't such a thing as a lazy companion. It's...genius in a bizarre way."

"There was always... We first saw signs of this group a couple of years before I started working for Mycroft. Competitive, leave no loose ends, no family members, no ties. I was thinking like... Intel for criminals." Paul took a deep breath. "So Mycroft had Sebastian trained to compete at that level. Combined with a flexible personality, he'd be the perfect undercover infiltrator. I just... Never thought it could be all companions." 

"There aren't that many runaways..." John looked at Paul. "They’re going to try and turn me aren't they?"

"Oh, yeah." Paul almost gave a noise like a laugh. "Look at you, youngest companion surgeon on record. You're still learning, you..." Flexible, and Sherlock's companion, that had to be a feather in their caps.

"We've got to get out of here," John said feeling a surge of panic. "There has to be a way to get us out of here.

"If you come up with it, let me know. After my last escape attempt, they put the bolt in. I'm not going anywhere." 

"I'm sorry," John said wondering how the hell Paul was even as coherent as he appeared to be. "I wish we could have found you sooner." they had tried though, really hard.

It had just been impossible. Which didn't mean much for him ever escaping, as well. But he needed to try, while he was still fresh and alert. "Yeah. Sit down, rest. I don't know when they'll come back."

"I need more supplies for you, you've got a bad infection Paul," he said. "Take the antibiotics."

"What makes you think they're actually antibiotics?" he asked, holding them in his hand.

"They look like the ones I brought with me," John said. He picked up the packet. "They are still in blister packs..." He stared at it looking for signs of tampering.

 

"I've been tricked before." Then again, he didn't know coherent Paul really was. He deemed it good enough, and popped them carefully. "Jesus, all right."

"I could take one but..." John stared at them "I can't see any needle pricks or tampering. They are the right colour and consistency. Same batch numbers as the ones I had from the clinic so unlikely to have faked that if they were tampering. Right smell..." He tried to use all the skill Sherlock had taught him.

Paul gave a shaky exhalation, and held his hand out. "Here's to hoping it's not ecstasy again."

John cracked open a pill and could smell the faint earthy scent he associated with antibiotics. "Smells about right," he said. "Take it."

Paul did, carefully, swallowing a few times first, and then the second pill as well. He just needed to stay focused, and... And plan on getting out. Even if it wasn't, even if he couldn't bring Paul with him, he could get out and come back for him.

But given a choice he wanted to take Paul with him because he knew how much he meant to Sherlock to find him, to Mycroft for losing him and Seb.

* * *

While Paul slept, John had explored their shared prison cell. He supposed it was a little larger than actual prison cells, except that there was apparently no access to an exercise yard, and no natural light. There was a single exposed light bulb that was just out of reach, even if he jumped for it; there was a chamber pot within Paul's reach, and a separate bowl of water. There was a semblance of bedding -- a thin flat mattress and worn sheets that weren't filthy but weren't fresh from a drier, either -- a few feet away from where Paul was sitting, and the chain reached that point as well. And there was, of course, the chain that was locked into Paul's leg.

What there wasn't was any convenient grills, ducts, sewage pipes, wobbly loose blocks, pickable door lock or...well anything like that. Films had a lot to answer for really. It didn't stop him looking and he was scared. He'd been trying to hold it together, but he found himself sitting there shivering in a way not entirely to do with cold.

And Paul was asleep. Sleep was good, it was restive, but it was also a symptom of a lot of things. Depression, malnutrition, raging infection. John couldn't imagine a year in captivity. He'd heard of benefactors doing longer in some of the various wars, but to a certain degree they were protected by international law. They were combatants and other combatants. This whole thing was outside of combat.

What could he do? Try and make a break for it? But what about Paul? And he didn't even have a clue where he was. But if he waited then he might become weaker. Food was likely to be very sparse.

Fuck it, he knew they were going to come for him.

At least until the door cracked, slowly open. "Dr. John, come to the door."

No chance to rush the door then - too easy for them to close it. He moved closer to the door ready to assess an opportunity. Two guards he might be able to take if he was lucky. If he overpowered them he might be able to go back wake Paul and shoot the chain free. He was ready.

It did depend on him getting his hands on a gun. As it was, there were two guards, one of whom had his hands up slightly as if waiting for John to make a move. "Come quietly, or we kill your friend in there. I'd just like the opportunity to talk to you." 

He wasn't in a position to risk it, not with them ready for him. Maybe he would get an opportunity on the way back. "Don't kill him..." he said. He couldn't bring himself to say he was coming quietly but he didn't resist as he headed out of the door.

He was cuffed almost immediately, hands behind his back with good metal cuffs that didn't give him much flex. Clearly they didn't trust him, though they both seemed to relax once he had the cuffs on. That was good for John, even if they were walking up a slightly sloping hallway. "It's a shame you won't be able to meet the boss for a while. He's out of the country, taking care of other business. Still, I'd like to talk to you about your options." 

"I'll take the option that involves going home," John said tersely. "And not being abducted against my will or held prisoner."

"Isn't that how this all started, though?" The man had an easy cadence, but his English was accented. A touch of French at the edges? "You were wrapped up in a bow and given to your benefactor. And you think it wasn't against your will, because what else did you know of life?"

"Look, I'm pretty happy with my life thanks," John said. "I'm lucky enough to have someone pay for me to train as a doctor and then a surgeon. I wanted that, that wasn't forced on me."

He liked his life. He liked to think he was extremely lucky -- not only did he have a Benefactor who was easy for him to relate to, but he had a career. He existed as himself, separate of his Benefactor's interests and needs, though he did find Sherlock's work fascinating. But that was a personal taste, too, and he was allowed to have personal tastes. There was nothing restrictive about being Sherlock's Companion. Except, occasionally, the bedding when Sherlock rolled over and pulled the sheets with himself. 

The leader of the two, the talker, opened a door, and pushed him in. There was nothing there except a wooden table and two chairs, both simple, plain and crude. "Please, sit down."

He didn't have much of a choice but if he could talk rather than have the shit beaten out of him, he was willing to opt for that. He wasn't going to invite that now when he was trying to keep his strength for any opportunity for escape.

The other man sat down across from him, and the secondary positioned himself watchfully near the door. "I'm glad you're a reasonable man. I understand you've quite dug your heels in about this, and seeing your benefactor's family compatriot in such dire straits has no doubt set your determination. So, let's bargain instead. What treatment does he require to recover his health?" 

"Antibiotics, a lot of them. Decent food, and... I'll need to perform surgery on his leg. Probably an amputation as I can smell gangrene in there and we'll be fucking lucky if it hasn't led to a bone infection," John replied carefully trying to fiddle with the cuffs to see if he could wangle out of them. "He's dehydrated as well...I'll need equipment and sterile conditions for the operation." He tried using his confident doctor voice as if that would help.

"We can provide all of that," the man said reasonably. "But he continues to live merely because it amuses the boss. So I need something to offer him in return to... explain this."

"Got many doctors? Because I will offer to use my expertise on your behalf," John said. "If I can treat Paul. I'm not going to go around torturing people though."

"We could use a doctor. Our doctor is out of the country -- as is our lead executioner. You may find yourself quite busy in the meantime. But what happens when the boss returns.... I can't say." He gave a shrug, as if it was completely out of his hands and he was innocent. But, fine. He could comply that far. Compliance would buy him time, and survival. Compliance could get him what he needed to get free, to escape or be rescued. "Still, I think you would like him. He's brilliant. And business has gotten better and better..."

"Yeah, not interested," John said. "I'm talking about lives here. Lives are more important than business." 

Maybe he could get Paul fit and where he would be watched he could find a way to get things that Paul could make use of. He wasn't under any illusions that they would trust him, although he couldn't deliberate cause harm, he might not have any qualms with non-lethal means of getting out. 

The man smiled a little. It wasn't argumentative, but he did keep circling back to the same concepts. "Then think of it as two lives in support of the business. Or your own life in support of Mr. Gregson." 

"I can make that bargain," John said. "If he is treated well." He was trying to wrestle control of the situation.

"Oh. He can be treated well. If it suits." The man paused. "Aren't you curious as to why we've even bothered?"

"Yes, but I don't like power games," he said in reply shifting slightly.

"Ignoring it doesn't make it go away, but suit yourself." He leaned back in his chair. "We'll commence in the morning."

"Understood." He was curt about it. He needed to keep them alive, Sherlock would come, if he could treat Paul before the Boss returned they might get enough strength to break out or both be alive when Sherlock finally got there.

it was something to focus on, something to keep him going. He just needed to keep going. The man stood up, expression faintly displeased, but that was fine. John didn't want to play their stupid games.

He knew they wanted to court him, sway him and eventually if he didn't completely break him. He didn't have to be considerate of them unless Paul was directly threatened. That would come.

He was sure of it. But for the moment he was carefully walked back to his cell, by the same route as before, and uncuffed at the door. "We'll bring dinner."

"I appreciate it," he said coolly and for a split second considered going for it, but didn't. As a doctor he could possibly find out more about their position, and resources.

He needed to find a way *out*, as well. Ask if Paul had a mental map he could share of the place, maybe, for next time. See what he'd be facing.

The other guard there gave him a little shove forward, and the door slammed.

It could have been worse, John was aware of that. But he realized as he sat down next to Paul to keep him warm, it was partly because they were treating him like a normal Companion and their Headmistress had always made comments that he was not typical. He and Seb were more independent than most, more self-sufficient. He realized he was meant to fold, in panic for not having someone there.

He was supposed to lean hard on Paul -- hence putting him in a cell with him -- providing them easy leverage, and a good emotional tool. It was what was *expected* of companions. Maybe they'd underestimated him.

Or maybe there was something wrong with him because he had started to bargain right back and he was lucky in that he had something valuable enough to offer. 

Paul was shivering so he did actually carefully pull him in close to his body.

"'sft?" Yeah, there was incoherent, and he'd almost been waiting for that when Paul shifted a hand uncoordinatedly.

"It's okay, it's John," he said softly. "You're shivering."

He gave a laugh, and a cough, and was quiet for a moment before he offered, "I once hid in a snowbank, in a hollow as long as I am tall, and as wide as my shoulders."

"Freeze your ass off?" John murmured. "It could be the fever." He exhaled a little. "They made their pitch at me."

"Was it a good pitch?" He asked it quietly. "I always wonder what, how they get otherwise sane-seeming people to do this. Money? Ideology?"

"It was you basically," John said. "If I want you to stay healthy then I obey. I countered with a pitch of my own. I would be a doctor - not a torturer, but a doctor if I got to treat you properly."

"And they agreed? Huh. Acclimating you to them, maybe. I don't know." Paul exhaled hard, not quite looking at John, or anything in the room. "I didn't expect them to stab Sebastian. I thought they were letting them get away on purpose..."

"So far. The 'boss' is apparently away with some other high up," John replied. "So they are willing to make use of me. I've traded for me treating you, better food and conditions. If we can get you back to health..." He left it unsaid.

"Yeah." Paul closed his eyes, looking a little pained. "You need to take the opportunity if it presents."

John didn't want to, but he was pragmatic, more so than most Companions. "Paul, I don't want to, but if there is an opportunity I will go for it. But right now, if they are going to use you as a bargaining chip, you have value being alive."

"I think they've wanted to make my death a show." He said it musingly, slowly. "They're just waiting for the right opportunity, if my leg doesn't kill me first."

"I think all bets are off when the Boss gets back so I need to take care of this.” John gestured to his leg. "As soon as possible?"

"Yeah. No sense in trying to save it. I haven't stood on it in ages." He managed to sound light about it. "If I get out of here, I'll get one of those nice carbon fiber spring legs." There was a vague gesture with his hand.

And, they still thought Paul was the great flight risk, and not John. That was good as well, useful for them both as he coaxed Paul to better health. At least they were in a better position when the Boss came back, stronger than they'd been expected to be.

Time ticked nearer to when the boss was supposed to return. He had managed to negotiate some decent food for Paul and that had helped him shake off some of the infections. The healing of his leg was going well enough. John had managed to wangle him a crutch to use, although there was a complicated system where the crutch had to be on the other side of the room before the door was opened for any reason. John thought it was a major concession because with urging he had managed to cajole Paul into using it to rebuild muscle.

It just... Didn't get him much by way of information. The boss was brilliant and knew everything, and had plans and plans. He had a right hand, 'Captain', reputably mellower. John supposed in a world without last names, there had to be something equally as useful to use.

That "the Boss" inspired fear was more than evident, but he also inspired loyalty as well. For all their talk of being free and better without a Benefactor, every one of them had clearly just transferred that Companion instinct for unquestioning loyalty and person centered focus to the new boss. And they were all completely blind to it. It never stopped him trying to find out more about him.

John wasn't going to turn, he was just going to carry on being a competent doctor. There was enough work for him to do -- wounds, injuries from battle. Former companions and locals alike. Some of the companions had removed their brands, and some had never bothered; half the time, they offered him their stories. They were the sorts of stories that young companions had always been warned could happen to them, the horror of mis-treatment that everyone quietly understood some Benefactors preferred to acting like proper benefactors. Some claimed they had simply run away; others claimed they'd killed their benefactors.

It was the injuries to the non-frontline personnel that made John wonder. There was an IT tech who'd lost an eye some months before; he wondered why there was an IT tech in a cave structure, but assumed there were large portions of the complex he wasn't privy to, or it was in a nearby complex, separate to the facilities there. There was an acquisitions fellow who'd taken a beating from the Boss who was now suffering from tinnitus. From the stories, John had built up images of some hulking monster, a third world dictator style leader smoking cigars and putting them out on people's necks.

He'd always understood how important it was to have routines to frame situations around, but it wasn't until he had a routine -- a medical work routine --again that he felt less gripped with fear. There was a low level panic humming at the back of his mind, lurking there quietly, but he was managing. It had been three weeks, and he and Paul were both still alive. They were being fed routinely. He thought that maybe, just maybe, he'd saved Paul's knee. He'd amputated as carefully and sparingly as possible, knowing full well that if... no, that *when* they got home, *when* they got home a surgeon may need to do further work at the amputation site to make it work with a prosthetic.

When he'd explained it to Paul, he'd seen the other man's doubt and fear and oddly, acceptance that it wasn't actually something he ever needed to worry about, because in Paul's mind, they weren't going home and there would be no other surgeon, and John would turn. Because no one was coming, because Mycroft hadn't been able to find him, so surely Sherlock wasn't going to find either of them.

"Right, Stewart, how are we today?" he said to the Companion who he been treating for random leg wound for the last few days. "Any sign of infection?"

"Redness? No, no new redness," Stewart offered. "It's the same as yesterday. It's still oozing. How often should I change the bandage?" And how the hell had he ended up with the wound was a good question.

"In this dusty atmosphere, it needs to remain covered." John said. "Let’s see how the stitches are doing. I’m worried I stitched it too early." He was being a doctor, because it was better than being a victim.

If he was a doctor, he was in control. He could affect the world around him and he wasn't going to be made a victim. "It looks okay? I guess." Stewart peeled the bandage off, and showed it to John. It mostly looked good, but he might have to re-stitch part of it if--

"Knock knock. Philippe said you were in here, John, I'm so surprised to hear you're here..."

He recognized that voice and at one time he would have thought he would have been grateful to hear from Doctor Jim, but he had treated Paul's wounds, mapped the extent of his torture and it was like a flashpoint fuse in his brain. He turned and punched "Doctor Jim" straight in the face. "You fucking bastard..." he spat out. "Call yourself a doctor?"

He staggered back, hit the wall behind him hard and had a hand up to his nose. "You broke -- fuck, you broke my nose?" His voice was strangled, pitching upwards. "Fuck!" It was the laughter that followed that startled John. He remembered Jim's laugh -- it had always been a bit like a run away train, more like a giggle than anything else. For a man who had blood dripping out behind his nose, off of his finger, there was no place for giggling.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" John said perplexed. "We took a goddamn oath Jim! First do no harm! What did they do to you to turn you?"

"Well I think you just failed 'do no harm' sweetie," Jim scoffed, wiping his fingers on his jeans, and pulling a face. He got himself standing upright, and kept touching his nose in half horror, half fascination. "Stewart, you can go. Put a bandage back over that thing, would you? I want to talk to Doctor John in quiet."

"Y-Yessir."

"There's harm and there fucking torture," John replied noting the 'yessir'. "Jesus, Jim what the hell, seriously..."

He coughed hard, and flung a little blood on the floor. "Yes, well, there's no hiding *this* one, is there? And what the hell do you think, John?"

"I don't know," John said. "All I know was that I was devastated when I heard you had been snatched and I've been trying to help locate you since I got out here then I'm abducted and I find out the person I've been trying to find has been torturing people."

Jim looked healthy. Extremely healthy, with a bit of a sunburn -- but he was clean and well groomed and dressed sharply in jeans and a couple of t-shirts layered together. "Ugh, I've only had to do that once. It's not like it's a *habit* around here. And I was snatched. I just... it wasn't a bad offer."

"Everyone seems scared shitless of the Boss," John said trying to memorize every detail as he went out 'escorted'. Jim was lying to him, he could pick that up and that bollocks about torture only being the once... yeah, he knew otherwise. Not unless there were other surgeons on the team who tortured people. But he wasn't sure what he was lying about. "What's he like?" 

It was just that he needed to get a bead on *what* Jim was lying about. He watched Jim's mouth pull down, while he gave a thoughtful sort of shrug. "I'm not sure how to describe him. He's like no one I've ever met, or think I ever will meet -- spends a lot of time bemoaning how we're all so bloody stupid, even his favorite pet, so, *so* bloody stupid, with small little dull normal minds. He does like to go on about that. After that, it's the drugs again or walking in on him and his pet fucking, but that's really only every other day. I suppose he'll overdose one day, and no one with the supplies to fix it will be on hand." He seemed to be musing it as he lingered near a door, peering curiously through a crack before moving on.

"Seems a bit stupid if he's that clever," John said, privately understanding how it could happen. Sherlock would be like that. He tried to glance at the door as well. "I mean, to dull his mind with drugs if he values intelligence?"

Jim gave a non-committal shrug, and kept walking down the mostly dark hallway. "Your benefactor had a drugs problem."

"Had, being the operative word," he replied still following him.

"While things are good, sure. You're the new drug." There was a door at the end of the hall, and it felt a little warmer there. Jim opened it, and light spilled out. "Sometimes, people like that just find the world too boring to bear."

It was possible that might happen. What would Sherlock be doing now without distraction? John fell silent for a moment as he entered the room.

"This is going to hurt," he said feeling where it was and lining it up .A swift sharp movement and he had the cartilage aligned again and was ready with his swabs to staunch the fresh blood.

Jim gave a gasp, swallowed it, and grunted under his breath. "Fuck. Fuck, you're still good..."

"There. Beautiful again." He tossed the compliment out to see how Jim reacted.

"You'd like to re-break it," Jim drawled, without missing a beat. His eyes were still tracking John's motions keenly. He leaned a little, took the kettle off, blew out the sterno and started, incongruously, to make tea. "But you're more interested in keeping Mycroft's agent there alive."

No point hiding. "Yes," he said brusquely. "But you know that."

Jim lowered his eyes, mouth slightly open as he paused in his tea-making. It didn't quite seem a natural motion -- more mimicry of something John had seen before. Stealing people's habits to assemble a persona, then. Dr. Jim had always done that before. Was that even his name? "I do. And I know if I ask you what you'd like, you'll ask to be set free. But I'm afraid I can't do that. Sherlock was getting too close, you see. I needed to throw him a curve ball. Someone in my organization is *helping*."

"Or is it you can't believe someone can be that good without help?" John said. "Sherlock is that good. As good as you are."

"We're going to find out, aren't we?" He lifted his eyebrows at John. "I want him to be as good as I am. I might give you back to him if he is. We'll see."

"This is all a game for you isn't it?" he said. "The whole thing." John looked at him. "What's the game with me?"

"Let's see if you can figure it out. All the pieces are there, all the information you need." He poured tea, black, hot -- actual good British tea, a nice familiar smell -- into a cup, and offered it to John. "Go on. It's not that spiced chai the Captain's been drinking. I swear, if he makes me enough another piece of flatbread, I'm going to snap something in half."

"You can always pass it on," John said as he took the cup. It could be drugged but frankly, that was likely to happen regardless. Damn. "Really you should ice your nose but."

"I don't like the cold." He gave a vague hand-wave of a gesture as he took a sip of his own tea. "You and Paul will be seeing quite a lot of me over the next few days, I think."

"Oh here we go," John said. "This is where you threaten him to coerce me." He was being deliberately offense because he wanted to protect Paul, preserve that health he had nurtured back.

"That's a waste of both of our times," Jim mused, taking a lingering sip of his tea. "I'm not keeping him alive for your sake, nor killing him to spite you, John. You do think highly of yourself. No, no, I have better plans for him. I want him to die without hope in his eyes. I want him to know he's lost everything that mattered to him, *really* lost it. Then he can die. Clearly, we're not at that point yet."

"Why?" John said. "Why do that to him? Do you have a reason or is this just some batshit insane idea you had."

No he couldn't allow that.

"Mycroft Holmes crossed me some years ago. And then, Mr. Gregson had the tenacity to *escape* a similar situation, that I was peripherally involved in." Jim took another sip of his tea. "It's worth it to me."

"What's it worth to you not to do it?" John asked.

Jim gave a quiet laugh. "You're looking to make a deal with the devil. You're in a position of weakness -- what do you have to offer me?"

John looked directly at him. "You wouldn't keep your word any way." He was aiming to dangle bait and withdraw, keep Jim interested, like waving a feather in front of a kitten.

It worked, too, from the way Jim lifted his carefully groomed eyebrows. "Oh, you do still have teeth. Tiny kitten teeth. I'd keep my word for you. Companion's honor, such as it is. I'd still crush Mr. Gregson's hopes, but I'd turn him loose. One legged and all."

Distractibility, that was Jim's weakness. "Really. And I'm meant to say, that's great, let’s make a deal?" John said. "I don't even know what you want."

"I don't, either." He was still smiling, and that was a lie. John knew that was a lie, the smile was too even, everything was too contained. He had a goal there.

"Liar," John challenged. "You know what you want, you just don't know which you want first. So which is it? Revenge, power, sex..."

"Who says I have to pick one? You'd be a lovely bookend to the Captain. Different, complimentary skillset, of course, but you're efficient for one so very young... I wanted you first, you know. Before I even laid eyes on him, I wanted to pull you out of the hospital and drag you across Europe with me."

"But you didn't," John replied and fuck, now he knew the stakes. Jim wanted to break him in a different way. "Pet collector huh?"

"Collector might be the wrong word. He's been the first one in a long time. I dallied before that, tried a few and never found them lastingly interested. I think meeting you reminded me what I was missing out on. Com*pan*ionship does have its benefits." He set the tea down on the low table, halfway to bringing a hand up to his nose. 

"That is ridiculously melodramatic Jim," John said. "Why do you want anguished cries anyway? It's not like it would mean anything useful to you."

Jim licked his bottom lip, holding onto the cup. "I think you underestimate my ability to plan. I could break you with one word, John. One *word*."

John looked directly at him. "Maybe. But I'd heal. You wouldn't."

"Is that a threat?" Jim's mouth curled slowly. "You might want to try that again -- I'm sorry, I wouldn't heal from what? Paint a picture, John."

"As much of a threat as yours was," John said. "You want a picture? Fine. You've been broken so long Jim you don't even remember what it is like to be *real* - and it's spectacular, like fractures in diamond causing rainbows and light and you are amazing, but you are broken. And you'd never let yourself heal or mend because it would mean the end of that broken brilliance. You're too scared to let go of the freedom of your many faces, and in doing so you'll never find the one face someone could love. You could break me, but I've already loved someone and I know being that person is better than being fucked up. "

No reaction. He smirked a little more, eyebrows dancing slightly. "And love heals everything, hmn, John? Love, and the memory of it has never, ever, driven someone to do horrible things. People have never gone mad for lack of it, for feeling its missing presence. No, it's all strength for you and no weakness. Well, that's because you're young yet. You have time, still, to go bitter." 

"I still have time do I?" John said sarcastically. "Well that's a relief because I'm pretty much counting any moment alive in your presence as a bonus."

"And well you should," Jim said lightly, voice lilting. "You broke my nose! I'm going to have a hell of a time explaining this."

"I am mentally preparing myself for violent retribution," John said as flippantly as he could. Talking was Jim was like an extensive fencing match - if he hadn't been living with Sherlock he would have floundered immediately.

As it was, he was tired, but still faring well. Jim took another sip. "No. There's a factor in here I hadn't expected -- I *don't* know what the Captain will do. I surmise, and I usually surmise correctly. But this, this is all up in the air."

And that was why he was letting the game play. Because there was an unpredictable variable and that delighted him, because it was new and interesting and not boring. Everything in Jim's life was motivated by that urge. "So how intelligent are you Jim?" he asked while he thought that over.

Jim snorted, and rolled his eyes. "I thought we were past whipping it out and measuring our dicks -- here's a hint, mine's bigger."

"Don't be fucking ridiculous, I wasn't comparing you with me," John said. Hmm, Jim didn't read things perfectly then, that was interesting.

"I'm brighter than Sherlock. I *ruined* Mycroft Holmes. That was a disappointing bit of work, let me tell you. The supposed human ice berg, downed so easily. He still carries on, but it's crumbling under his feet, John. You should see it. We set charges in a cruise ship. Should be going down... Oh, soon. Do you want to watch the streams? Let's see how the British government responds to this one..." 

"You do this to torture Paul don't you?" John replied. "How do you know he is ruined?" He was cataloguing the information and he was going to think it through when he was in the cell.

"He invested too much of himself in other people. Caring is weakness," Jim drawled, voice pitching towards sharp and clipped, like quotation. So Jim knew Mycroft at some point? Or had watched him until it had felt like he knew him. Until he felt like he knew Sherlock. "I meant it about the footage -- you can stay, or go back to your cell. Either way, I'm watching."

It was a test, John knew that much. "At least I'll get a cup of tea out of it," he said remaining sitting.

"Atta boy. Positive thinking!" He shifted off of the pillow, back to the footlocker. It didn't surprise John at all when Jim fished an iPad out, flipping the screen cover off while pouring more tea for John before he settled in place again. "Hmn, hmn, I'm going to be pissed if it didn't go off after all of that *arguing* about how best to rig the timing device."

It would allow him to get a feel for where Jim's interests extended and the motivations. "Why a cruise ship?" he asked trying to remain detached from the tragedy that was going to occur. 

"Because it's a lot of bang for the buck." There was a pause, and Jim cut his eyes over to John, as if looking for a reaction. He was bringing up a browser on his iPad. So, there had to be repeaters down there in the complex. "Oh, come on. That was a horrible joke."

"Pardon me if my sense of humor has atrophied being stuck in a cell," John replied. "You'll be doing it on behalf of someone though. Combining business and pleasure."

"Good. Good, you do catch on. I like that." He hummed quietly to himself, tapping around quickly on the screen. Dimly, John could hear CNN international come on, and then Jim turned the volume up, peering at the screen in interest as he half-showed it to John. 

"... from Mumbai. A reported 2,300 passengers were onboard, when multiple explosions were felt." The video started to buffer, and Jim sighed.

"Hard to get good wireless," John said but it was something automatic as he tried to reconcile what he was seeing. Would that have completely slipped past Mycroft and Sherlock?

"Shielding the complex from signal leak, oh yes, it's a hazard." Jim stared hard at it, while it chugged and sputtered through the story. The ship had gone down off the coast of Oman; US ships in Yemen were nearby, and headed there to support the rescue effort. "C'mon, get moving, kids, let's make this interesting..."

John frowned a little. "Bait..." he said under his breath.

"And then, who comes to the rescue when the big kahuna's hurt? *More* ships," Jim smiled. "I'll have a projector brought down, how about that? We'll put CNN on, they're nice and repetitive, project it up against the wall? I might put the American CNN and the good old beeb on rotation. Just so you can get all the flavors of it."

If he could see it, Mycroft would have definitely seen it. John was sure about that, and doubly sure Sherlock would be having a pink fit about it. Unless there was a counter move there. "I am meant to be in the clinic," he said mildly. Jim thought about death on a big scale.

"Tomorrow. Today, you sit down there with Mr. Gregson, eat a good dinner, and watch this. More tandoori bread than you can eat." He had a funny set to his jaw as he started to stand up. "Yes, let's go." There were probably things to be taken care of in conjunction with it all.

He obeyed, knowing Paul would find it hard to deal with but they were playing companion games. Reading needs, and desires, using them to inform action. He wasn't sure how Jim would approach it but he had woken his interest enough to make him more than a disposable pawn.

Jim wanted to play with him -- and if he wanted to stay alive, playing the game was important. The walk back to John cell was long, which reiterated to John that they were tucked deep into the heart of the complex. Jim opened the door slowly, watching into the darkness for a moment. "There you go, John."

As if he was escorting him back to his room. Paul would no doubt be freaking out about now. "Yeah, thanks," he said stepping inside.

Jim shut the door firmly, and said through the door, "I'll be back, with dinner -- Paul, long time, no see!" And then, maybe he was gone. Maybe.

Yeah, that had been to fuck with Paul. He was getting a feel for how Jim operated now. And now Paul would be cooking up scenarios all over the place and thinking he was going to turn and...Shit.

Paul was sitting on the bedding, watching John -- not with paranoia, just basic curiosity. "You look... surprisingly all right for a run in with Mengele Junior."

"Mm." John sat down next to Paul. "I'm not sure how I am. I've got a lot to tell you." How to explain it all?

Paul as watching him, still not reacting. In a very careful way. "I think I spent too long around Sebastian. Can we skip the after-school special run-up?"

John quirked a smile. "I saw Jim, I punched him in the face and broke his nose. He was the Dr Jim who was my mentor back in London. And then... he's the Boss, Paul. Of the whole organisation."

"You're fucking kidding me." Paul tilted his head back, leaned it against the wall. "Fuck. Fuck, that sadistic little prick is the Boss. That... *he's* been the root of our problems for years."

"Yeah." John exhaled. "Broke his nose though. Unfortunately that's interested him." It had been that that had sealed Jim's attention. "He spent the rest of the time poking at me mentally and trying to get a reaction. He now wants me as a pet."

"Jesus." Paul shook his head slightly. "We need to escape. This... Is only going to go downhill."

"I know.” John leaned in close. "I don't think he has audio feed in here. He is going to make us watch the latest disaster he is behind. Bombing of a cruise ship. He has satellite phones. We're very deep in a complex here.”

"Why would he bomb a cruise ship?" Same question John had already gone through, except Paul was looking towards the door as he asked it.

"Bait. It must be a commission because I think he's going for a secondary when the US ships rush to aid them," John summarized his thoughts.

Paul sighed, rubbing a hand over his mouth. "And whatever he has planted in the ship will be more than enough to probably draw more to the site -- or paralyze it. We were tracing the disappearance of old Russian nuclear materials for years."

"Mycroft will realise...Sherlock will, but can they do anything?" John said. The reaction to the close encounter was settling in now and he knew was shaking a little. He ignored it.

"And if they do, it completely distracts Sherlock from finding you. That's a challenge that no one could say no to, not as the military Intel guru Sherlock always was..." Paul sighed. "Fuck."

"But then the trail leads here," John said. "Okay, fuck. The Captain is someone like me he has broken. Probably a military Companion."

"There are enough of them in country here." Paul seemed to be struggling to inspire himself to play the play and guess along game, but John was going to be patient. Keeping Paul engaged was keeping him alive. "Run away, or kidnapping?

"Not sure. But comparatively recent. He mentioned something about knowing me making him realize about companionship." John considered this. "I played along. Used to it from Sherlock."

"Well, he ran into you how long ago? Two years before you went home. You've been home over a year." Three years with the urge, that was still recent. "I'm glad you did. You kept his attention. I never did."

"He's like Sherlock, wound up even more. It's about interesting him, the world is too predictable, too boring to him. He craves things he can't predict or control."

"Sherlock craves an interesting challenge. Mycroft always preferred having *everything* in control." Paul was leaning heavily on the wall, but at least he was alert. "We have to get out."

"I know. Any ideas?" John asked. "Because right now, security is tight. You are in better shape. I know you can move fucking fast with that crutch."

"I have a feeling that in a hand to hand, he has a butterfly knife," Paul murmured. "He'll be the weak spot, though. The rest of them travel in packs of two or more."

This was good though, Paul was actively thinking about it. "I'll describe what I saw, see if it helps." Sherlock had demanded 'details John, more details' so he described everything as he would have done to Sherlock, finding the memory, examining it, reporting the doors noted, the steps, every detail he could recall for Paul. One to pass the time and another to allow him to think.

Talking it through helped, and the detail helped Paul. He was listening, probing, but it all fell silent when a voice called through the doors, "Crutch on the other side of the room. Dinner's coming."

John took it over and placed it, turning to face the door. Food they would need for any escape attempt.

It was always a bit of a dance, but this time the man took the effort to pop open a bolt-hole in the door as well -- apparently it had to be manipulated from both side. One of them seemed to be jamming a projector up against it from the outside, while the other brought the food in to set it down. Tandoori-baked bread, and meat, with a few fresh bits of fruit as well. It looked plentiful, and smelled good.

"Price for a decent dinner,” he said to Paul. "We have to watch Jim's version of entertainment."

Once the door was shut firmly again, John went for the platter. The projector started up again, so he sat down, positioning the platter for sharing. "This is just softening us up. I still can't believe he's the boss. Amazing. He must've been your age when he started all of his shit."

"Possibly earlier. Something broke him. I know he was trained as a Companion, I can see it." John helped share the food. "Whether he had a bad experience or was rejected...not sure. But he has a chip the size of a bloody log on his shoulder."

"Whoever his benefactor was fucked up big time," Paul said while making a grab for a piece of bread, "… by not bringing him home and drowning him straight off."

"Or by making him decent and human," he said. He didn't feel pity for Jim, no but he knew more of the motivations that drove Companions and that were built into their core.

"Yeah, you can't make someone be decent and human. You can make them *want* it. You can make someone decent and human want to kill, too." The sound was crappy, but listenable, as there were US ships moving towards the site, along with a few local patrol ships.

"If Mycroft had predicted this, what would he do?" John asked. The food was good and he guessed, a form of reward for impressing Jim.

Tasty, easy to chew. He swallowed, and watched Paul watch the screen for a moment. "Keep British ships out. I'd expect nuclear contamination -- the US ships would form a perimeter around it. They'd send smaller ships in full chem bio nuke gear to rescue any explosion survivors."

"I guess it will be easy enough to see if he has," John replied. All they could do was hope that the Holmes brothers were a match for their psychotic host.

* * *

Jim had come back from the sub complex with a black eye and swollen nose.

There hadn't been much time to run down what'd happened, given that there'd been things they needed to do. Not everyone had played into their hands as well as he'd have liked. They'd created a standoff distance that was much more than they needed to keep to not worry about their ship being affected by the cruise ship going down. The bomb'd gone off, taken out an alliance recon unit, was officially an environmental disaster. Most of the passengers were dead from the radiation, though some were still clinging on in hospitals that were trying treatments they hadn't had the opportunity to try in years and years. There was an ongoing discussion about the radiation levels, and the spreading cloud, and and...

And Seb just couldn't think. They'd done it, they'd fucking bombed and then *nuked* a cruise ship with people flapping about in the water waiting for a rescue that was never going to come.

There didn't seem to be any line he wouldn’t cross for Jim, and nothing seemed real aside from him. Once he had calmed down, dealt with the payments, the coordination he then started thinking about which of his staff could have possibly done that to Jim.

And *survived*. And inspired Jim to *lie* to him about it. That was the discomfiting part, that Jim'd *lied* about it, and left a survivor. He wasn't sure which one made Seb feel more on edge, so he ventured off to that complex to run it down. It was a good walk, and he had to talk to his staff anyway. He hadn't swung by recently.

Jim was off doing some negotiating with some big names who had liked his demonstration with the cruise ship. He had time to poke around unseen. It was a decent complex as their bases went. Quite well provisioned and placed and he never had anything in the way of trouble reported from it.

It was mostly a shipping waypoint, a staging area. It was an easy trip to and from, a great storage facility without risking the main area. He never liked to announce his visits. It was easier to come up calmly, greeting the guard positioned up on the hill with a lift of his hand.

He was pleased to see them alert, and managed to get them to confirm that Jim had visited not that long ago.

Which was intriguing in itself, because seriously, why would he come here, much less get punched?

"I want to talk to the man who punched the Boss," he said bluntly, still smiling, still feigned cordial. 

He saw the flinch as if they knew what that meant. "Boss doesn't want him killed Captain, Sir," the guard said hesitantly. "He left orders."

Seb lifted his hands, as if to say he acceded. "Hey, I just want to have a talk about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable for a man in his position."

The man nodded. "Understood sir," he said. "I'll take you to the prisoners."

Prisoners. Huh. Prisoners, he hadn't known about any prisoners. "Thank you. I want to talk to them in... Private." A prisoner who'd fucking punched Jim. Fuck, what was the world coming to?

Time was Jim would have used a prisoners head as a bowling ball than let that stand. He was led deep into the cave complex and, fuck this area was bigger than he remembered. What other shit had Jim been doing here.

"This cell sir," he said. "Prisoners, other side of the room. I'll uh... leave you to it." He handed over the key and backed away, obviously not wanting to be culpable when he exacted his revenge.

Yeah, it was better for him to move his ass out of the way. Seb waited a moment, leaned into the door and barked, "I want you to back away from the door."

There was a momentary clatter, and he opened up the cell door stepping inside and...Had to take a moment to try and get his brain to register what he was seeing.

John. And Paul. John and Paul, just there in front of him. Fucking hell, John and Paul.

He stepped in, shut the door behind him hard -- make them think he was fucking pissed, make them stay away, and that was all he could think of. Staring, because there was Paul. He, oh god. Jim had had him all along. Jim had had Paul *all* *along*.

John looked stunned, completely poleaxed but Paul actually smiled. "Seb?" He didn't move forward though and it was with a shock that he realized why.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck... He could feel his chest thrumming, his stomach somewhere down in his knees as he started towards them both. "How, fuck, *fuck*, he had you all along, he..." And John, why was John there? What had he done to John? When had John gotten older and mature looking? "Fuck, fuck, I, can you stand?"

"But you're meant to be dead..." John said "I saw the film. I..."

"You weren't expecting to find us here?" Paul asked reaching for his crutch. 

He didn't have the better part of one leg. That, Seb shook his head, glancing between Paul and the crutch as he slowly got upright. "I needed to, no one would look for Paul, I had to make it plausible. Oh god, *fuck*, he had you all along." And he knew Seb was looking for Paul, he knew it was an almost singular concern.

"So you've been undercover with him," Paul said moving over to him. "Fuck Seb, how deep? How deep are you in?"

"Doesn't matter. We need to get you out -- John, come on." He wanted to whine, he ached, it all felt impossible. He'd just *nuked* a cruise ship, he'd, they, Jim had *used* him. Jim had'd held onto the only reason he had to not keep going.

John was looking a bit dazed but snapped to it. "This is real right? How the hell are we getting out of here? All three of us."

All three of us? Seb blinked, had to turn that over in his head for a moment, trying to breathe. He... fuck. Fuck. He couldn't think past the feeling of pain behind his eyes, curled around in his chest. "Stay near the door. I'll get supplies, and then we're gone." Seb uttered quietly, backtracking to the door. He needed to keep moving, so he yanked it open, and slammed it hard, scanning angrily now, openly enraged as he looked for the nearest flunky.

Not too far off. "You, I need supplies -- can't leave marks, can I? I need canteens, and belts. Where's the boss's little fucking bolthole? I know he's got a shit load of sterno there. Have you ever done hot water boarding?"

The soldier looked suitably impressed and horrified. "Do you want me to bring it sir or follow me?" he asked

"Just take me there. I need a moment to cool off so they're both still alive when he gets back." He gave an edged up laugh, shaking out one hand as if he'd hit something with it hard. "Fuck. Can you believe that?"

"No sir. Couldn't believe it when I saw it sir," the man said leading him up the corridor.

He gave a shaky exhalation, rubbing fingers over his face. "Fuck. Well, how're things, eh? The reports you all were sending up while we were gone looked good. Is it as good as the reports?"

"Yes sir," he replied. "Base is good. Having a doctor on board has helped, even under duress."

"Maybe that's why he's let the fucker live." Seb swallowed, pushing back anger as he walked with the man to another fork in the halls. "I'd like to take a look at the books when I'm done."

"Of course sir, I'll have them ready for you," he said. "This is the Bosses office, in here."

He nudged the door open without hesitating, and started towards the foot locker. There was a tea-pot, so he grabbed that -- obviously to heat water -- before nudging it open to see what there was to grab. 

Quite a bit from the looks of it. He could get water, and yeah some of the snacking shit Jim seemed to live off of. Jim tended to keep some esoteric shit in his rooms even in the middle of a cave system.

Seb knelt, unshouldered the ruck he carried out of habit -- he never knew when things could go wrong, but it was just enough for himself, for a short period of time. The snacking stuff, the canteen from the water source Jim had on hand, yeah, that was good. A couple of painkillers, hard drive, flash drives, he stuffed it away. If he was going to be dead man walking, he was going to hand over enough shit that John and Paul could stop it. He shouldered the re-secured ruck, and had Jim's spare utility belt that he never used -- "Why do I need to carry anything when I've got you?" -- in hand when he headed back up the way he'd come.

He wasn't sure what the hell he was going to do. Jim was going to kill him for this, there was no doubt of that. But then, Jim was going to kill him anyway. He could do it one day just because he was bored because for all the good times, Jim was a crazy little fucker.

He'd been living on borrowed time anyway. Seb kept a good pace, angry, *feeling* and being angry because fuck, he was angry. The flunky who'd met him at the fork was back there again, back to his reappointed post. Seb'd have to kill him, and that was fine. Only person he'd come across on the way out, in all likelihood, and he was well armed, always was. His gun was slung across his back with the comfort of someone who usually forgot it was there at all. 

Seb unlocked the door, still moving tightly. John was looking pale but he was up and supporting Paul with a crutch. 

"How do you want to play this?" Paul said and his voice still shocked him. He had more than half believed he was dead, gone forever.

He still had a voice.

"Follow me. There's no playing this." He shifted, slung the gun around to the front, and pulled his pistol out of his hip holster to hand to John. There wasn't time to plan -- just to get out. The cameras would pick it up, and Jim would get alerted no matter what. Even if he was in negotiations halfway around the world.

John didn't argue, and he could get a gun from the guard for Paul. Shit they were going to have to go across country, across the mountains. They were silent behind him as they opened the door of the cell, falling step.

He couldn't just get them to the edge of the complex and let them loose. He was going to have to keep up with them, he'd have to hand them over to an alliance post, If he could jack a vehicle once they were down out of the mountains, they'd go better.

The first problem was the agent at the fork, so he gestured with a hand behind him for them hang back.

He moved up and the poor bastard wasn't expecting anything from him. He was the Captain, he practically owned the place.

It was a shame that he had to do it, but no loose ends. They all needed the extra time, so Seb didn't even try to fake something for the poor fucker to play along to. He held his mouth in a tight line, watched the man's eyes widen a little when one hand landed on the side of his head, and then the other, and then nothing. Nothing at all in his eyes after Seb snapped his neck around and let his body slump to the ground. He crouched with it, and grabbed his gun, his ammo, while John and Paul were already coming forward.

He was surprised there was no comment from John but Paul just took the weapon passed to him managing to grip it one handed. Time to move. No time to think or waste. Somewhere a tape was sending this to Jim. It just depended on how quickly Jim was bored today as to when he checked in. Even if he wasn't around there would be a strike force sent after them. He knew how that worked, he'd set up the protocols.

Organization like theirs, people got cold feet all the time. And they needed to be dealt with and they needed to understand that cold feet wasn't a particularly good way to keep living. 

Seb led the way up the hallway in silence, because it wasn't a heavily manned base. There was a lot of room to move without having to stop and say hello to anyone, which was why Jim had probably been keeping them there. There was the guard at the door, and Seb repeated the gesture at the hallway, signaling John and Paul back, getting in close and familiar to the fellow and then snapping his neck.

Too easy, even if the smell of piss was acrid. It was bright outside and John and Paul were definitely squinting. Okay, time to get as far away as physically possible.

He started down the familiar path, moving as quickly as he could, checking behind him frequently -- to see that Paul and John were there, to see if they were being followed yet. They just needed to move fast, through a narrow path that seemed to all but encourage slipping. When they got around the bend, it'd be easier for them to hide if they had to, but they needed distance first.

Distance and a fucking car.

They were doing okay. John was covering Paul's progress at the rear automatically and Paul was moving well enough.

No pursuit as yet, that was good.

Just one foot in front of the other. He didn't have time to think, couldn't let himself. He was watching the path, and didn't take his immediate cut-through that he always took, because Jim'd expect that. They just had to keep going.

* * *

Everything seemed surreal, this whole escape was strange. Seeing Seb standing there, his eyes widened in shock had been enough to send his brain into meltdown. Seb was dead - yeah, he'd tried to believe he wasn't but Sherlock had not found evidence. His eyes, Seb's eyes there was something wrong and when he'd said about the three of them escaping, John was sure that Seb had been surprised somehow...as if he wasn't expecting to escape.

It had almost been hard to recognize him when he'd been standing there -- half-tanned, half sunburnt, his hair sheered short and spiky, almost fashionable, which he'd never seen Seb do in his lifetime, not really. And his eyes were all wrong. Seb was moving like he was alone out there, but still looking over his shoulder, checking that he and Paul were still there. 

Like he was escorting them.

As if he was going to drop them off somewhere, not part of them. He understood about keeping quiet to start with - he'd had enough 'for fuck's sake do you want to kill us all?' lectures from his squads. But this was wrong... he wanted to hug Seb, wanted to check he was real, not a figment of his imagination, wanted to say he'd missed him.

Seb just kept going, though. They had to have walked for an hour, maybe two, endless walking until Seb led them up to a low niche in a rock wall. "Here, get some water in you, a little food. There's a village another three klicks off, and we might be able to jack a vehicle there."

Paul eased himself down and John moved over towards Seb, wondering what to do. "Seb?" he said in a low voice.

Seb was crouched over his ruck sack, fishing out a canteen to hand to them both. It'd been over three years since he'd seen his friend, and he wasn't looking up at John. "I stole a few hard-drives, some of Jim's shit. I'm sure Sherlock can do wonders with it. He did plenty with the little bit I gave him earlier. Sat phone... I don't know any, we're being followed, and we might as well try to get help."

"Seb. C'mon, look at me," he said again taking that information in but it was more important to see in his eyes somehow. "Fuck, Seb, I need to know you're okay...”

And his voice was breaking somehow even though he impatiently ignored that.

Seb gave an uneven laugh, head still down as he held the sat phone out. "I can't do this. I can't do this. Just take the damn phone and call for Sherlock, or we're not going to be able to stay ahead of them."

He took the sat phone and looked at him, kneeling down in the dirt next to him, dialing even as he put a hand on Seb's leg like he used to do when no one was looking. Solid, real, warm. Hard muscles...yeah. He dialed the number to the Intel fusion center, knowing that one of Sherlock's men for that particular center would be there. It rang and rang, and then picked up. 

Seb held still beneath John's hand, while John heard, "Hello?"

"It’s Captain John Holmes, is Sherlock there? I need someone to locate the signal of this satellite phone. We have escaped a facility and are unsure of location in relation to friendly territory." 

"It has the coordinates on the screen," Seb murmured, voice quiet and rough as he touched the side of the handset, and then leaned back when John lowered it from his ear to look. Right, that was. Easier, and of course Seb knew it did that. 

"Great, if you could give me your coordinates..."

He rattled off the coordinates, still trying to look at Seb who was making him uneasy in the ways he spotted soldiers who were considering eating a bullet. "We expect pursuit by hostiles."

"We're going to keep moving in a south-westerly track," Seb offered. "To maintain distance." He'd lifted his head, and was looking at Paul, as the other man caught his breath and drank water.

"Will be on a south-westerly bearing," John reported. Fuck. Damn, this was not good if he was the fucking stable one around here.

"Continue on bearing. Head five klicks, can meet you there for an extraction. How many individuals are with you?"

"Two others," he replied. "Five klicks south west, roger." Terrain was bad though, wasn't as easy as it sounded. There was a hiss from Paul behind him and he saw Seb go into alert state.

Seb reached for the phone, snatched it from John, and re-closed his ruck. That they were moving out again didn't have to be said. He just didn't know what had tipped the other two off.

He'd been oblivious, on the phone and he scrambled to his feet and what he could. Fuck. He pulled his gun, wondering what the hell he should do...bring up the rear, cover Paul. Allow Seb to lead.

They fell into the same line as before, though Seb was moving at a faster pace, hand still on his gun. No sign yet, but then he heard a distant shot -- nowhere near them, but the crack echoed ominously behind them as Seb fell back a little to fall in with Paul. "C'mon, we're taking a slide here -- John, you all right following us?" A *slide*? It looked barely past sheer, but Seb knew the terrain.

They'd already trusted him that far.

"Yeah...” John replied, keeping up. "Go, go.” A slide, he could deal with that.

Seb slipped an arm around Paul's shoulders, and then half sat on that ledge, one leg jammed into the dirt straight out -- and then down they went, rocks and dirt skidding out ahead of them, ten, twenty feet, barely in contact with the edge at all, it seemed, another ten feet, another, until the slope gave way to curving flatter land.

Fuck, that crack seemed really close. He went over the edge as well, adrenalin pumping, dust choking and stones clattering. Shit, he had to move.

Seb hauled Paul upright, and then swore, racing to reach John and John didn't expect that. "Move, move, please move, fuck, they moved a sniper out..."

"Jesus... Seb, don't worry about me...” he was able to run, able to use the unpredictable movements. Paul couldn't. Couldn't stop a sniper if they got a lock. "Grab him, go..."

Seb licked his bottom lip, and pulled at John instead, fingers on his shoulder, and *fuck*, *fuck* that hurt! That hurt, why did that hurt? "*Move*."

He was moving, running then and his shoulder ached as he ran. The both of them were trying to shield Paul, which was probably faintly ridiculous in his case as he was so much shorter. They needed some fucking cover. 

Red flicking laser spot on Seb and he shoved him sideways and fucking ow, that hurt that arm, but there was the crack of a bullet between them. Where the hell was the cover?

There wasn't enough, and they were being pursued. Moving was their best choice, staying moving. "They never did lead on a runner right," Seb hissed, trying to push Paul and John both along, a cluster. It was a fast stumbling mess, but Paul was keeping his own, and John felt like he was falling apart as they made it to the nearest edge of a gradation down. 

Christ he knew he had lost fitness in the cell but he was panting a lot. It was almost humiliating. Cover, thank god... He gestured, as if that was going to help Seb spot it. "How far?"

"Another fifty meters. Go, go..." Paul slipped, and Seb ducked in to haul him staggering to his foot again, both of them fumbling the crutch for a moment. John nearly didn't make it to the spot, all three of them scrambling for it. Seb laid out, positioning his rifle. They were in low ground, but it was good cover as far as low ground went.

"Fuck." John groaned and rolled to lie on his back feeling nauseous as he tried to clear his head. "Paul you okay?"

"Everything hurts." Paul's voice tilted towards a laugh as he low crawled over to John, pulling Seb's ruck open to hopefully look for medical supplies. "But I haven't seen sunlight in ages."

"They've dug in. I can see them back at the crest."

Trying to pin them down. "How many?" he asked. He swallowed a little slowing his breathing.

"Three. Starter group. If I can pick them off, we should make the pickup point. If you could get the sat phone out again..." Seb shifted faintly behind his gun, and kept his eye to the scope. "C'mon, prove me right that you were always an impatient bastard..."

He fumbled for it in the ruck, keeping down. "What do you want me to do?" he asked. Wow, he must have hyperventilated or something because he was feeling lightheaded.

"Call, stress the urgency. Not bleed out." Seb took a breath, and then pulled the trigger. It was loud, stunningly loud; John usually had ear protection in when guns were firing, and he'd never been beside a long range rifle like that when it went off.

"You just carry wound packing material on you," Paul said, unwrapping it and then leaning closely over John. "Keep breathing. This is going to hurt."

"Wait, what?” John blinked and was about to say what the hell when Paul pressed on his left shoulder and the pain took his breath away. "Argh, fuck!"

"Just keep focused, John." Seb was shifting faintly, moving again. It was hard to focus through the searing pain, through Paul *stuffing* something into his shoulder, and then putting the lip of the canteen to his mouth.

"I'll call. What's the number, John?"

He rattled it off, somewhat stunned by the fact that he had apparently been shot and not noticed it happening. He'd heard of it before, but always believed it was macho bullshit soldiers came up with after the fact. Paul was rough and efficient and holy crap, it was making up for not being noticeable before.

The pain was breathtaking, and hard to work through. He was vaguely aware of Paul's voice, on the sat phone, stressing that they had a critical injury, their current coordinates that they were pinned down. He could see the sky, bright and sunny above him; Paul's hair as the man leaned over him again, off the sat phone, canteen up to his lips again. 

"I don't have any IVs," John heard Seb say quietly. "Or needles in the pack. Stay down, I saw the scope move."

"I'm okay," he mumbled. "I'm okay." He tried to look at himself, he needed to get a grip. Bleeding needed to be stopped. "Got any of the bread? It...Stops bleeding. Styptic." Sherlock would never forgive him if he died....and he couldn't die.

Paul needed him, Seb definitely needed him looking so lost and hurt and that wasn't his Seb. Seb was full of life and physicality, brilliance and humor. He was crazy in a good way, not looking at him like his heart had been ripped out.

"I'm not shoving dirty bread into your shoulder," Seb muttered. 

"This'll do," Paul murmured, putting a gauze sheet over the front, sticky tape sticking out oddly against the blatant pain. "There was combat gauze in the ruck." And then there was the deafening sound of a gunshot again, enough to make John turn his head to look in Seb's direction in their hiding spot. 

"Can you move? Andrews can't shoot, and he'll hang back and wait for reinforcements rather than pursue." 

"Yeah, fuck, I'll move," John said forcing himself to try and sit. "Just needed to... catch my breath." Another sniper gone then. No-one would be able to support him, if Seb was protecting them and Paul was managing with his crutch.

Seb stayed low, folding in the stabilizers on his gun and reaching one handed for his ruck to put it back on. "Okay, I'll help you move. You all right, Paul?" 

"Good as I'll get." Getting up from the low crawl wasn't easy, and John wasn't sure what was keeping him going. The better treatment they'd managed to wrangle from Jim, because Paul wouldn't have been able to when John had first gotten there. Or hope. They were so close... "Let's hope that this doesn't end like a bad western."

"The good, the bad and the weird." Seb had his eyes on the outcropping, and crawled over to John to help haul him up.

"Still a strong bastard," John said almost breathlessly, clinging on to him. "Jesus, Seb I missed you." The words just blurted out as he got his legs under him.

Seb got himself on John's good side, an arm around his waist as he nodded to Paul and they started to move -- a couple of shots fired, but Seb had been right. Whoever was left alive up there was a poor shot to start with, and had probably been more shaken by the death of two compatriots than his already poor aim could handle. "Can't deal with this right now. Let's get you both back to the alliance first."

"Let's get *us* back," John corrected, woozy but moving. "All of us. Promised Paul we'd get home.” He could do this, one foot in front of the other, focus, focus, focus, and try not to slow them down. Not far now, couldn't be far.

Even if it was far, he was going to keep telling himself it wasn't far at all, one foot in front of another in front of another, until he got there. Until they were all safe. Seb didn't answer, just kept walking, looking behind them, scanning, looking in front of them, hauling John along when he did start to slow up. Paul was keeping pace with them, but Seb kept glancing over, slowed a little when Paul slowed. "C'mon, there's a good landing spot just ahead, and we can hole up in the rocks. I'll lay a signal out to the helo." 

He made it up there, breathing hard. Blood loss, he knew that, but he was still panicked that Seb would go out of sight and not come back. "Paul... Paul, look out for him," he asked. "I'm worried."

"Yeah." Paul was rubbing at the muscles of his good leg as they sat, checking John's vitals in an idle way. "We've found the Captain."

"Seb is lost," he said a little woozily. "It's like he doesn't think he can come back." He was the only one who believed he they could all go home."

"They just nuked a cruise ship, John," Paul said quietly. "He's going to have to be held in custody while he's debriefed. It's going to take a while."

"I know but… he's Seb," John said helplessly. How could he explain how well he knew him? "He's done this for… Mycroft, for you… for his duty. Don't leave him alone."

"Don't worry, John. I don't plan to. It's just not going to be easy. We're all going to be debriefed." Paul handed him the canteen again, and what looked like a candy bar from Seb's ruck. "We both need medical care. But we'll be out of here soon, and he's definitely not going back. He's burned that bridge."

That was a relief. He took a swallow, and looked around for Seb. He was feeling cold. Probably bloodloss. "Sorry about not saving your leg."

"It was done for weeks before you cut it off, John. You saved my life. I wouldn't have lived long enough to see this moment if you hadn't been there." Paul's expression looked concerned as he broke a thumb sized piece of halfmelted candy off, and held it out at John. "Eat."

He sucked on the candy, shivering a little. "I think I'm hitting shock Paul," he said. "I should... probably lie down with feet elevated."

Paul scooted, and reached for John's ankles. "Volemic shock, right? C'mon, keep talking, eat that." There was a bit of a don't you dare die note to Paul's voice. 

He ate again and grunted as Paul moved him. "It hurts, fuck. Didn't notice it when it happen and now..." he tried to smile. "Not going anywhere Paul. I said we'd get out."

"You remember that." There was a pause as he looked up at the sky, listening for noise. He could hear it, faintly -- chopper blades.

"Where's Seb?" John asked listening to the approach. "He is here right?"

"Yeah. He's waving at the chopper." His feet shifted a little, and he wondered just how Paul was propping them up. Still, better to keep his head down. "I know he thinks he has unfinished business back there. But that's not his to take care of."

"Yeah. He needs to leave that to the Benefactors," John said feeling exhausted. His eyes were starting to droop shut and he was fighting it. The helicopter's blades were loud now, a muffled noise that whined louder. It was all right to relax, then. Just for a bit.


End file.
